Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Interesting stuff although I think secret #1 should be "You are going to get totally ripped off" or maybe it's so transparent it's not a secret anymore?
I am in the midst of getting an implant done - it will be around $4.5k. I think the average mugger would give you a better deal...
That Flu Shot:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/19/The-Truth-about-the-Flu-Shot.aspx
The Following was composed by Dr. Russell Blaylock as a method to reduce autoimmune reactions to the flu vaccines only. Do not use this if you have the flu itself. These are just general observations and not medical advice. You should work with your doctor for a specific program.
Treatment for Toxic Vaccine Exposure
Place a cold compress on the site of the injection immediately after the injection and continue this as often as possible for at least two days. If symptoms of fever, irritability, fatigue or flu-like symptoms reoccur -- continue the cold compresses until they abate. A cold shower or bath will also help.
Take fish oils -- I recommend the Norwegian fish oil made by Carlson Labs -- it has the correct balance of EPA and DHA to reduce the cytokine storm. The dose is one tablespoon a day -- if severe symptoms develop -- two tablespoons a day until well and then switch to one tablespoon a day. Children -- one teaspoon a day.
Curcumin, quercetin, ferulic acid and ellagic acid as a mixture -- the first two must be mixed with extravirgin olive in one teaspoon. Take the mix three times a day (500 mg of each)
Vitamin E (natural form) 400 IU a day (high in gamma-E)
Vitamin C 1000 mg four times a day
Astaxanthin 4 mg a day
Zinc 20 mg a day for one week then 5 mg a day
Avoid all immune stimulating supplements (mushroom extracts, whey protein) except beta-glucan -- it has been shown to reduce inflammation, microglial activation and has a reduced risk of aggravating autoimmunity, while increasing antiviral cellular immunity.
Take a multivitamin/mineral daily (one without iron -- Extend Core)
Magnesium citrate/malate 500 mg of elemental magnesium two capsules three times a day
Vitamin D3:
All Children -- 5000 IU a day for two weeks after vaccine then 2000 IU a day thereafter
Adults -- 20,000 IU a day after vaccine for two weeks then 10,000 IU a day thereafter
Take 500 mg to 1000 mg of calcium citrate a day for adults and 250 mg a day for children under age 12 years.
Avoid all mercury-containing seafood
Avoid omega-6 oils (corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean, canola and peanut oils)
Blenderize parsley and celery and drink 8 ounces twice a day
Take Jatoba tea extract (add 20 drops in on cup of tea) one day before the vaccine and the twice a day thereafter. (you can get it at http://www.iherb.com/Amazon-Therapeutics-Jatoba-1-oz-30-ml/14429?at=0) It is inexpensive.
===================
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Dr. Blaylock has done a wonderful job of interpreting the misleading data and fear mongering put out by conventional media. Mark my words, the "expected" causalties from the swine flu, recently released by a presidential advisory panel are nothing but pure fiction.
On August 25, CNN reported that the swine flu could cause up to 90,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. This is downright preposterous. As Dr. Blaylock discusses above, there are absolutely no indications to validate these kinds of numbers. Instead, it's sounding more and more like the bird flu hoax all over again.
So one of the most important, and potentially life saving measures you can take is to make sure you have IDEAL vitamin D levels. The ONLY way to do this is to get your blood tested and make sure the ranges are between 50 and 70 ng/ml. My recommendation is to use Lab Corp. If for whatever reason, you are using Quest, you must understand their numbers are inflated and you must divide by 1.3 to get the real number.
The typical dose most adults need is around 5000 units per day. However, the dose could go to 20,000 units a day or even higher. The ONLY way to know is to have your blood tested.
Dr. Cannell is on one of my colleagues in this area and has done enormous good in educating the public about this issue. Unfortunately we do not share the same position about vaccines. He is actually advising people to take them and he strongly believes that there is a chance that it could save people's lives.
I couldn't disagree more strongly with his position but I respect his right to maintain it. Just reminds me that the last position nearly every physician is willing to give up is their position on vaccines. I have seen it time and time again. So while Dr. Cannell has done us all a major service in educating us on vitamin D, I believe he hasn't taken the next step and evaluated the vaccine issue as carefully as he has the vitamin D one.
Dentistry: Secrets Your Dentist Doesn't Want You To Know
Posted by: Dr. Mercola
September 19 2009 |
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/19/Secrets-Your-Dentist-Doesnt-Want-You-To-Know.aspx
Here are the secrets your dentist may not want you to know -- but you need to know to get the best care possible:
Secret #1: Your dentist may not be as educated as you think.
Dentistry has changed a lot since your dentist graduated from dental school. There have been major advances in most materials used in fillings, bonding and root canals. If your dentist is not actively engaged in continuing education, it is unlikely that he or she is keeping up with these developments.
Secret #2: Your dentist may not have the latest technology.
Digital x-ray: Dentists who do not have digital x-ray equipment are practicing in the dark ages. Digital x-rays use less radiation than film. They are easier to read and the ability to manipulate contrast makes diagnosis more accurate.
Ultrasonic Cleaning: Ultrasonic instruments vibrate plaque and calculus off your teeth, even in areas below your gums. It is much more comfortable than old-fashioned hand scraping.
CEREC: The CEREC system lets your dentist provide a ceramic crown or veneer in only one visit. CEREC means fewer injections, less drilling and no annoying temporaries.
Diagnodent: This is a laser that the dentist shines on the tooth and it tells whether there is a cavity and how deep it is. With the use of this technology, the dentist can detect cavities, and find them at an earlier stage, than traditional poking around the tooth.
Secret #3: Your dentist may be using mercury.
Mercury is toxic. Norway and Sweden have banned the use of mercury fillings.. But mercury fillings are less expensive and easier for the dentist to use. If your dentist does not use composite fillings, don't go to that dentist any more. In the US, the FDA is way behind the ball and not actively warning patients about this like they have been mandated by the courts to do.
Secret #4: The lab may be more important than your dentist.
Dental labs create dentures, crowns, bridges, orthodontic appliances, and other dental restorations like implant crowns. There is a huge difference in the quality of these labs. You should be particularly wary if your dentist is using a lab in China or Mexico. Some of the top labs in the U.S. are Aurum Ceramics, MicroDental Laboratories, da Vinci Dental Studio, and Williams Dental Lab.
Secret #5: There's more to good dentistry than filling cavities.
A competent dentist screens for more than tooth decay. He or she should be concerned about sleep apnea, jaw-related pain known as TMJ or temporomandibular joint disorder, periodontal disease, oral cancer, diabetes and hypertension.
Secret #6: You are probably using the wrong specialist for dental implants.
Since dental implants involve the removal of a tooth and replacing it with an artificial tooth, many patients assume that an oral surgeon is best qualified to do it. This can be a flawed assumption. Periodontists, who specialize in gum disease, may be a better option. Periodontists have special training in gum tissue and underlying bone in the mouth, which are significant issues in dental implants.
Secret #7: Bad dental advice about dentures can be fatal!
Dentures are no joke. Your dentist should examine your dentures for evidence of wear. Wearing down the teeth on your dentures can result in distorted facial characteristics, collapse of the bite and closure of the airway.
Secret #8: Your dentist may not know enough about sleep apnea.
The most common form of sleep apnea is caused by a blockage of the airway during sleep. It is a pretty scary condition. The patient can stop breathing hundreds of times during the night. A common treatment for sleep apnea is Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP), which involves blowing pressurized room air through the airway at high enough pressure to keep the airway open.
As an alternative, your dentist, working with your physician, can custom make a device that guides the lower jaw forward, called a mandibular advancement device or MAD. MAD devices are more comfortable to wear and the compliance rates are much higher than using CPAP.
Secret #9: Not all cosmetic dentists have the skills to really improve your smile.
Any dentist can call herself a "cosmetic dentist." Your dentist should be able to show you ten or more before and after photographs or videos, and be willing to give you the names of patients who have consented to be used as references.
Secret #10: How to avoid the root canal your dentist says you need.
Ask about the "ferrule effect." Technically, this means that a root canal is unlikely to be successful if there is not enough tooth structure above the gum line to protect the tooth from coming loose or fracturing after it has been prepared for a crown. If your tooth fails the "ferrule effect" test, you might be better off with an extraction and an implant.
Sources:
Daily Finance August 27, 2009
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
You’ve heard the expression “your eyes are the windows to your soul”?
Well, some say your teeth are the windows to your health; personally, I am constantly amazed at how powerful a predictor of health your teeth can be.
When I have seen chronically ill patients with nearly cavity-free teeth, I am encouraged that they will likely get well quickly. If, on the other hand, their mouths are full of fillings and root canals, the prognosis is not always as good.
In the 1900s, Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist, did extensive research on the link between oral health and physical diseases. He was one of the major nutritional pioneers of all time, and his classic book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration is full of wonderful pictures documenting the perfect teeth of the native tribes he visited who were still eating their traditional diets.
A mouth full of cavities, Price learned, went hand in hand with a body either full of disease or generalized weakness and susceptibility to disease. In Price's time, tuberculosis was the major infectious illness, and he noticed that children were increasingly affected, especially the ones with the lousy teeth.
Your Diet May be Even More Important Than Your Toothbrush
In the quest for healthy teeth and gums, nothing may be more important than your diet.
Dr. Price found, on average, less than 1 percent of tooth decay in all the native people he visited!
He also found that these people's teeth were perfectly straight and white, with high dental arches and well-formed facial features. And there was something more astonishing: none of the people Price examined practiced any sort of dental hygiene -- not one of his subjects had ever used a toothbrush!
Dr. Price noticed some similarities between the native diets that allowed the people to thrive and maintain such healthy smiles. Among them:
The foods were natural, unprocessed, and organic (and contained no sugar except for the occasional bit of honey or maple syrup).
The people ate foods that grew in their native environment. In other words, they ate locally grown, seasonal foods.
Many of the cultures ate unpasteurized dairy products, and all of them ate fermented foods.
The people ate a significant portion of their food raw.
All of the cultures ate animal products, including animal fat and, often, full-fat butter and organ meats.
If you, too, eat properly and maintain optimal health, you’re highly unlikely to develop cavities or other dental problems. They really only occur when you're eating the wrong foods. So pay attention to your diet, as this is a key to keeping you safely out of the dentist’s chair -- at least for visits that involve more than routine cleaning.
That said, nearly everyone needs to see a dentist at one point or another, so when you do make sure to keep the following important tips in mind.
Seek Out a Biological Dentist
My own struggles with my teeth led me to learn about and embrace biological dentistry, also known as holistic or environmental dentistry.
In a nutshell, biological dentistry views your teeth and gums as an integrated part of your entire body, and any medical treatments performed takes this fact into account. The primary aim of this type of holistic dentistry is to resolve your dental problems while impacting the rest of your body as little as possible.
Biological dentists should also be well aware of the dangers involved with certain dentistry materials embraced by conventional dentists, namely silver fillings.
Silver fillings are 50 percent mercury and are an extremely dangerous neurotoxin that will, not may, damage your brain, and frequently will cause permanent neurological damage. Folks, it is a POISON.
We are currently seeking to get the FDA up to speed (and have made great strides, I might add!) to have mercury fillings banned completely in the U.S., as it has been in some other European countries, and hope to be able to get this toxic material off the market in the near future. Until then, it’s up to you to refuse them, or find a dentist who has switched to safer alternatives.
Refuse to Have Metals Used in Your Dental Work
Holistic dentists use biocompatible materials that will not adversely impact your immune system. Beyond mercury, stainless steel and other metals continue to be used in the mouth by conventional dentistry even though they have been well established to have a cancer-causing effect when used elsewhere in your body.
Further, metals commonly utilized in dental work such as crowns, mercury fillings and implants can be quite toxic. When placed in your mouth they are sitting in a medium of saliva, which turns your mouth into a charged battery.
We call this charge "Galvanic Toxicity." Your brain is a collection of millions of nerve fibers that is essentially a battery emitting electrical charges throughout your body.
The Galvanic Toxicity in your mouth can bombard and over-stimulate your brain. Common signs and symptoms of Galvanic Toxicity are a metallic taste in your mouth, an electric charge with utensils and insomnia.
Finding suitable materials to replace the metals currently used can be a challenge, but a knowledgeable biological dentist should be able to inform you of the latest, safe alternatives.
Think Twice Before Getting a Root Canal
Teeth are similar to other organ systems in your body in that they also require a blood supply, lymphatic and venous drainage, and nervous innervations. Root canals, however, are dead teeth, and these dead teeth typically become one of, if not the worst, sources of chronic bacterial toxicity in your body.
If your kidney, liver or any other organ in your body dies, it will have to be removed so that bacteria and necrosis will not set in and kill you … but teeth are commonly left dead in your body.
Teeth have roots with main canals and thousands of side canals, and contained in those side canals are miles of nerves. When dentists perform a root canal, they remove the nerve from the main canals, however they do not have access to the microscopic side canals, which have dead nerves left behind in those spaces.
Anaerobic bacteria, which do not require oxygen to survive, thrive in these side canals and excrete toxicity from digesting necrotic tissue that leads to chronic infection. Blood supply and lymphatics that surround those dead teeth drains this toxicity and allows it to spread throughout your body. This toxicity will invade all organ systems and can lead to a plethora of diseases such as autoimmune diseases, cancers, musculoskeletal diseases, irritable bowel diseases, and depression to name just a few.
Even antibiotics won’t help in these cases, because the bacteria are protected inside of your dead tooth.
It appears that the longer root canal-treated teeth stay in your body, the more your immune system becomes compromised.
Fluoride Won’t Keep Your Teeth Healthy Either
Fluoride is added to most U.S. water supplies and also is used as a treatment by some conventional dentists.
Once inside your body, fluoride destroys your enzymes by changing their shape. You may remember that your body depends on thousands of enzymes to perform various cell reactions, and without these enzymes, we would all die. They are able to perform their reactions because they have a specific shape that allows them to work with other elements in your body, like a lock and key.
Once fluoride destroys their shape, however, your body does not recognize the enzymes, and in fact will view them as foreign invaders and attempt to attack them.
When your enzymes are damaged, it can lead to collagen breakdown, eczema, tissue damage, skin wrinkling, genetic damage, and immune suppression.
All of these risks, and fluoride does not help to prevent cavities as you may have been led to believe.
Figures from the World Health Organization show the same declines in tooth decay that have been experienced in fluoridated countries since the 1960s have occurred equally in non-fluoridated countries.
In another study from 2004, pro-fluoridation dental researchers from the University of Aderlaide in South Australia were unable to demonstrate any difference in the permanent teeth between children who had lived all their lives drinking fluoridated water and those who had drunk rain or bottled water.
What does fluoride do to your teeth, then?
Well, it’s known that it interferes with the development of tooth enamel, a condition called “dental fluorosis.” Those in favor of fluoride like to say that fluorosis is a purely “cosmetic condition,” but rarely do symptoms appear for no reason.
In this case, the white spots that form on your teeth after consuming too much fluoride are likely a warning sign that other tissues are being impacted. Studies have shown, for instance, that children with severe dental fluorosis are more likely to have bone fractures.
The Environmental Working Group even reported a finding from a Harvard PhD thesis that showed boys exposed to fluoridated water when they were between the ages of 6 and 8 had a seven-fold increased risk of developing osteosarcoma, a form of frequently fatal bone cancer.
If you’re wondering how to keep your teeth healthy, remember that fluoride was never the answer in the first place. Instead, think back to the work of Dr. Price … and look to your diet for naturally healthy teeth. Most people whose diet includes very little sugar and few processed foods have very low rates of tooth decay and cavities.
Resources to Find a Biological Dentist
Knowledgeable biological dentists can be hard to come by, so start your search by asking a friend, relative or neighbor who knows of one. If that fails you can contact several good natural health food stores in your area and ask a number of the employees or even the owner. The following links can also help you to find a mercury-free, biological dentist:
Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions: e-mail dams@usfamily.net or call 651-644-4572 for an information packet
Consumers for Dental Choice
International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine
International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology
Holistic Dental Association
International Association of Mercury Safe Dentists
Love this story or not, you will not be able to have tea in a tea cup again without thinking of this.
There was a couple who took a trip to England to shop in a beautiful antique store to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups. Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked "May we see that? We've never seen a cup quite so beautiful."
As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke, "You don't understand. I have not always been a teacup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, "Don't do that." "I don't like it!" "Let me alone," but he only smiled, and gently said; "Not yet!"
Then WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. "Stop it! I'm getting so dizzy! I'm going to be sick!", I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, quietly; 'Not yet.'
He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. "Help! Get me out of here!" I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, 'Not yet'.
When I thought I couldn't bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good! "Ah, this is much better," I thought. But, after I cooled he picked me up and he brushed and painted me all over The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. 'Oh, please, Stop it, Stop, I cried. He only shook his head and said. 'Not yet!'.
Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering "What's he going to do to me next?"
An hour later he handed me a mirror and said 'Look at yourself.' And I did. I said, That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful!!!
Quietly he spoke: 'I want you to remember, then,' he said, 'I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.'"
The moral of this story is this: God knows what He's doing for each of us. He is the potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will.
So when life seems hard, and you are being pounded and patted and pushed almost beyond endurance; when your world seems to be spinning out of control; when you feel like you are in a fiery furnace of trials; when life seems to "stink", try this.
Brew a cup of your favorite tea in your prettiest tea cup, sit down and think on this story and then, have a little talk with the Potter.
Song for a Sunday: How Great Thou Art
Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed
REFRAIN:
Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee
How great thou art, How great thou art
Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee
How great thou art, how great thou art
When thru the woods, and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze (Refrain)
And when I think that God, his Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin (Refrain)
When Christ shall come, With shout of acclamation
To take me home, What joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration
And there proclaim, my God how great thou art (Refrain)
More on iodine and bromides
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/22/Another-Poison-Hiding-in-Your-Environment.aspx
Bromides are a common endocrine disruptor. Because bromide is also a halide, it competes for the same receptors that are used in the thyroid gland (among other places) to capture iodine. This will inhibit thyroid hormone production resulting in a low thyroid state.
Iodine is essential for your body, and is detected in every organ and tissue. There is increasing evidence that low iodine is related to numerous diseases, including cancer. Various clinicians and researchers have found iodine effective with everything from goiter to constipation.
Bromide can be found in several forms. Methyl Bromide is a pesticide used mainly on strawberries, found predominantly in the California areas. Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO) is added to citrus drinks to help suspend the flavoring in the liquid.
Potassium Bromate is a dough conditioner found in commercial bakery products and some flours.
Sources:
Natural Thyroid Choices: Bromide
Iodine 4 Health
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
If you are like most people, you probably haven’t spent much time thinking about how much bromine you’re absorbing from your car upholstery or your Mountain Dew. But bromine toxicity is a definite danger from some surprising sources, and it can wreak havoc on your health.
Bromines All Around You
Bromines are common endocrine disruptors, and are part of the halide family, a group of elements that includes fluorine, chlorine and iodine. What makes it so dangerous is that it competes for the same receptors that are used to capture iodine.
If you are exposed to a lot of bromine, your body will not hold on to the iodine that it needs. And iodine affects every tissue in your body -- not just your thyroid.
You are already exposed to far too much chlorine and bromine. Bromine can be found in a number of places in your everyday world, including:
Pesticides (specifically methyl bromide, used mainly on strawberries, predominantly in California)
Plastics, like those used to make computers
Bakery goods and some flours often contain a “dough conditioner” called potassium bromate
Soft drinks (including Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Sun Drop, Squirt, Fresca and other citrus-flavored sodas), in the form of brominated vegetable oils (BVOs)
Medications such as Atrovent Inhaler, Atrovent Nasal Spray, Pro-Banthine (for ulcers), and anesthesia agents
Fire retardants (common one is polybromo diphenyl ethers or PBDEs) used in fabrics, carpets, upholstery, and mattresses
Bromine-based hot tub and swimming pool treatments
According to van Leeuwen, who has extensively studied the effects of sodium bromide on thyroid function:
“Although the bromide ion is widely distributed in nature, the main route of exposure in man stems from bromide residues in food commodities as a result of the abundant use of bromide-containing pesticides, like methylbromide and ethylene dibromide, for soil fumigation in intensive horticulture and for postharvest treatment.”
One clinical consequence of overexposure to bromine is suppression of your thyroid, leading to hypothyroidism, which will be discussed shortly. Another is bromide toxicity.
Bromine -- The Bully of the Halide Group
When you ingest or absorb bromine, it displaces iodine, and this iodine deficiency leads to an increased risk for cancer of the breast, thyroid gland, ovary and prostate -- cancers that we see at alarmingly high rates today. This phenomenon is significant enough to have been given its own name -- the Bromide Dominance Theory.
Aside from its effects on your endocrine glands, bromine is toxic in and of itself. Bromide builds up in your central nervous system and results in many problems. It is a central nervous system depressant and can trigger a number of psychological symptoms such as acute paranoia and other psychotic symptoms.
In fact, in an audio interview, physician Jorge Flechas reported that, between 1920 and 1960, at least 20 percent of all hospital admissions for “acute paranoid schizophrenia” were a result of ingesting bromine-containing products.
In addition to psychiatric problems, bromine toxicity can manifest as the following:
Skin rashes and severe acne
Loss of appetite and abdominal pain
Fatigue
Metallic taste
Cardiac arrhythmias
Baby Boomers might recall a popular product from the 1950s called Bromo-Seltzer. These effervescent granules, developed by the Emerson Drug Company of Baltimore, were used to treat heartburn, upset stomach, indigestion, headaches and hangovers.
Bromo-Selzer’s original formula contained 3.2 mEq/teaspoon of sodium bromide -- hence the name. The sedative effect probably explained its popularity as a hangover remedy. Bromides were withdrawn from the American market in 1975 due to their toxicity.
Bromo-Selzer is still on the market but no longer contains bromide.
Bromines in Your Bread Box: Potassium Bromate
But the ban on bromines has not prevented them from sneaking into your foods and personal care products.
You probably are not aware of this but nearly every time you eat bread in a restaurant or consume a hamburger or hotdog bun you are consuming bromide as it is commonly used in flours.
The use of potassium bromate as an additive to commercial breads and baked goods has been a huge contributor to bromide overload in Western cultures.
Bromated flour is “enriched” with potassium bromate. Commercial baking companies claim it makes the dough more elastic and better able to stand up to bread hooks. However, Pepperidge Farm and other successful companies manage to use only unbromated flour without any of these so-called “structural problems.”
Potassium bromate is also found in some toothpastes and mouthwashes, where it’s added as an antiseptic and astringent. It has been found to cause bleeding and inflammation of gums in people using these products.
Sodium Bromate and BMOs
Mountain Dew, one of the worst beverages you can drink, uses brominated vegetable oil as an emulsifier. Not only that, it contains high fructose corn syrup, sodium benzoate, more than 55 mg of caffeine per 12 ounce can, and Yellow Dye #5 (tartrazine, which has been banned in Norway, Austria and Germany.)
A weapon of mass destruction -- in a can.
Even drinking water can be a source of bromide. When drinking water containing bromide is exposed to ozone, bromate ions are formed, which are powerful oxidizing agents. Such was the case in 2004 when Coca Cola Company had to recall Dasani bottled water.
Sodium bromate can also be found in personal care products such as permanent waves, hair dyes, and textile dyes. Benzalkonium is used as a preservative in some cosmetics.
Finally, bromine and chlorine were the most common toxic elements reportedly found in automobiles, according to the blog of David Brownstein, MD (March 2007). They showed up in the seats, armrests, door trim, shift knobs and other areas of the car.
Think about how much time you spend enclosed in your outgassing Chevy… windows up with no air circulation.
The United States is quite behind in putting an end to the egregious practice of allowing bromine chemicals in your foods. In 1990, the United Kingdom banned bromate in bread. In 1994, Canada did the same. Brazil recently outlawed bromide in flour products.
What’s taking us so long? Another case of our government protecting big industry -- instead of protecting you.
Iodine Levels and Cancer Risk
Iodine levels have significantly dropped due to bromine exposure; declining consumption of iodized salt, eggs, fish, and sea vegetables; and soil depletion. In the U.S. population, there was a 50 percent reduction in urinary iodine excretion between 1970 and 1990.
What’s this doing to our country’s health?
The Japanese consume 89 times more iodine than Americans due to their daily consumption of sea vegetables, and they have reduced rates of many chronic diseases, including the lowest rates of cancer in the world. The RDA for iodine in the U.S. is a meager 150 mcg/day, which pales in comparison with the average daily intake of 13800 mcg/day for the Japanese.
There is a large body of evidence suggesting that low cancer rates in Japan are a result of their substantially higher iodine levels. Iodine has documented antioxidant and anti-proliferative properties.
A strong case can be made that your iodine RDA should be closer to what the Japanese consume daily, if breast cancer rates are any indication. Low iodine can lead to fibrocystic breast disease in women (density, lumps and bumps), hyperplasia, and atypical mammary tissue. Such fibrocystic changes in breast tissue have been shown to reverse in the presence of iodine supplementation after 3-4 months.
If you are interested in being tested for iodine deficiency, the urine iodine challenge test is the best way to assess your iodine level.
Bromine and Your Thyroid
Adding to the negative health effects of bromine, the damage to your thyroid health deserves special mention.
As stated in the first part of this article, bromine exposure depletes your body’s iodine by competing with iodine receptors. Iodine is crucial for thyroid function. Without iodine, your thyroid gland would be completely unable to produce thyroid hormone.
Even the names of the different forms of thyroid hormone reflect the number of iodine molecules attached -- T4 has four attached iodine molecules, and T3 (the biologically active form of the hormone) has three--showing what an important part iodine plays in thyroid biochemistry.
Hypothyroidism is far more prevalent than once thought in the U.S. The latest estimates are that 13 million Americans have hypothyroidism, but the actual numbers are probably higher. Some experts claim that 10 to40 percent of Americans have suboptimal thyroid function.
Many of these folks may actually have nothing wrong with their thyroid gland at all -- they may just be suffering from iodine deficiency.
Seven Tips for Avoiding Bromine and Optimizing Iodine
Trying to avoid bromine is like trying to avoid air pollution -- all you can do is minimize your exposure. That said, here are a few things you can do to minimize your risk:
Eat organic as often as possible. Wash all produce thoroughly. This will minimize your pesticide exposure.
Avoid eating or drinking from (or storing food and water in) plastic containers. Use glass and safe ceramic vessels.
Look for organic whole-grain breads and flour. Grind you own grain, if possible. Look for the “no bromine” or “bromine-free” label on commercial baked goods.
Avoid sodas. Drink natural, filtered water instead.
If you own a hot tub, look into an ozone purification system. Such systems make it possible to keep the water clean with minimal chemical treatments.
Look for personal care products that are as chemical-free as possible. Remember -- anything going on you, goes in you.
When in a car or a building, open windows as often as possible, preferably on opposing sides of the space for cross ventilation. Utilize fans to circulate the air. Chemical pollutants are much higher inside buildings (and cars) than outside.
New Digital Cameras for Low Light:
For years now, the world’s camera companies have been taking the public for a ride. They’ve taught us to believe that what makes one camera better than another is the number of megapixels it has — when, in fact, the number of tiny colored dots making up a photo has very little to do with its color, clarity or even detail.
No Flash Needed
Slowly, though, the truth is getting out. Recently (at long last), camera companies have begun diverting their research efforts from “how to get more megapixels” to “how to get better photos.” They’re working on things that really do matter in a consumer camera, like sensor size, stabilization — and fixing low-light photography.
In that last category, please welcome the Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR and the Sony DSC-WX1 ($320 and $350, respectively, before discounting). Each comes accompanied by breathless marketing hype (“a breakthrough in low-light photography: stunning detail and low noise in scenes with no more than candlelight” says Sony) — but each, in its way, truly is an important step forward.
That’s because, in the world of pocket cameras like these, “low light” basically means “nightmare.” Once the sun goes down, the compromises begin.
You can put the camera on a tripod. That way, even though the shutter stays open a long time (to soak up more light), the camera doesn’t move, so blur isn’t a problem.
O.K., so you’re now supposed to lug around a tripod to go with your microscopic camera? Surrrrre you are.
Alternatively, on most cameras, you can crank up the ISO (light-sensitivity) setting. Now the camera soaks in more light, but at a terrible price: the teeming multicolored random grainy speckles known as “noise.” Or, worse, hopelessly “soft” smeared images that result from a camera’s overzealous antinoise circuitry.
Of course, you can always use the flash. Unfortunately, a flash photo isn’t what you saw with your own eyes. It’s something else, an image that usually features nuclear-bleached faces and cave-black backgrounds. And it doesn’t work farther than about 10 feet away.
(Those big heavy black S.L.R. cameras do much better in low light without the flash, simply because they contain gigantic sensors.)
Fujifilm and Sony have each tackled this problem exactly the right way, the hard way: by redesigning the sensor itself, the tiny rectangular chip at the heart of every digital camera.
For years, Fuji has been bragging about the unconventional layout of its sensors. On this chip, the tiny individual pixel sensors (called photosites) aren’t square; they’re hexagonal, arrayed in a honeycomb. That’s supposed to expose more sensor surface to the incoming light.
The new sensor in the F200EXR, though, goes a step further. In what’s called EXR mode, it can merge two adjacent photosites, in effect doubling the light collected at that spot on the sensor. Of course, this trick also halves the megapixels — you get 6-megapixel shots instead of 12. But amazingly enough, in low light, those 6-megapixel shots are actually sharper and more detailed than the 12-megapixel shots from the same camera.
Sony gave the sensor a makeover, too. According to Sony, a sensor is actually a sandwich of layers: tiny lenses on top, then color filters, then some wiring, then the actual light detectors on the bottom. Sony says that in its new Exmor R sensor, the circuitry layer has been moved to the bottom, so that less light is lost en route through the stack.
Does any of this make any difference?
It sure does. I spent three successive evenings shooting the same twilight and nighttime scenes with the Sony, the Fuji and my own Canon PowerShot SD880, a terrific 2008 camera with no special low-light features.
Now, I am a rabid fan of Canon pocket cameras, having found them to be the best on the market year after year. But in almost every one of my after-sundown tests, the Canon photo was too blurry to be useful. The Fuji and Sony shots were sometimes grainy (an S.L.R. would have done better) but were always sharper, and managed to capture something in anything shy of total blackness. (A slide show of example shots accompanies this article at nytimes.com/personaltech.)
It’s truly amazing; there hasn’t been an advance in small cameras this important since image stabilization came along.
In most cases, the Sony did even better than the Fuji. Some of its shots — like those taken with only a single candle as illumination — were nothing short of miraculous.
The Sony performs two other stunts that will make your jaw drop. From its much larger, zoomier cousin, the HX1, the WX1 inherits Sweep Panorama mode. As you whip the camera in an arc around your body, it quietly snaps 10 consecutive photos, figures out how to connect them, and spits out a finished 270-degree panorama. Talk about wide-angle!
. . . .
Secrets of Becoming a Late Bloomer
by Connie Goldman
We generally think of late bloomers as people who were not successful until late in their lives. In fact, most late bloomers had fulfilling careers before taking their lives in new directions. Groucho Marx, for instance, was a famous movie actor whose career had ground to a halt when, at age 60, he began hosting a new type of TV show. When Winston Churchill was around the same age, many thought that he was washed up as a politician. Soon afterward, he became prime minister of Great Britain. And even Grandma Moses -- who was nearly 80 when she began creating her now-famous paintings -- had been long known among her friends as an expert embroiderer.
Most late bloomers, of course, never make headlines, though they also move forward in new and fulfilling ways...
Natalie was age 67 when she joined the Peace Corps, learned Spanish and became a schoolteacher in Peru.
Martha was 71 when she used her experience in stamp collecting to start a successful mail-order business.
Robert, an attorney, was 65 when he began caring for his ailing wife and mother-in-law. After attending to those obligations, he started a new career as a teacher at a local college. Now 80, Robert is still teaching.
OVERCOMING HURDLES
As we grow older, most of us become so wrapped up in old routines that we don’t consider striking out in new directions.
Trap: Many of us spend our later years moping around because we never fulfilled the biggest dreams of our youths, such as skippering a sailboat around the world or becoming a professional ballet dancer.
Better: Keep in touch with your dreams, but make them more realistic. Instead of ruminating about sailing around the world, for instance, think now about buying a small sailboat and taking less ambitious trips. Or, if you aspired to be a ballet dancer in your youth, now consider volunteering at the local ballet company. What’s important is that the activity you choose is personally rewarding.
STRATEGIES THAT WORK
Each late bloomer moves forward in his/her own way, and the first step is often difficult. Strategies...
Keep a journal for a week or two. Write down your daily activities as well as the goals that you would like to pursue. Keeping a journal of this type is an easy way to spot the activities that are now unnecessary, usually because they’ve been part of your routine for many years.
Example: Socializing regularly with friends whose company you no longer truly enjoy.
Written words are powerful. Once we see our goals written down, we’re far more likely to take them seriously.
Discuss your goals with others. Many older people have struck out in new directions, and how they did it can be both instructive and inspiring. Some friends are likely to encourage you, but others may point out drawbacks that you hadn’t thought about.
By talking with a friend who went back to school late in life, you may discover that the process is easier than you imagined. Someone else, on the other hand, may point out that starting a consulting business may take far more time than you thought.
Exploit your creativity. History shows that becoming a late bloomer nearly always involves using creativity that may have been neglected for many years. There’s creativity in everyone, whether it’s in managing a company, coaching a sports team, inventing new recipes or even arranging flowers. If you have any doubts about your creativity, jot down in your journal what you most enjoy doing. What you’ll see is a list of ways to be creative.
Some late bloomers make use of their neglected creativity to start a new and profitable career. Many more use their creativity to help friends and/or family members. Regardless of which path you choose, using your creativity leads to more enjoyment in life and the building of self-confidence.
Learn something new. Take a course in a subject that’s always interested you -- a foreign language, painting or computer programming, for instance. Classes at local colleges and adult education centers can also be great places to make new friends. Don’t feel obliged, however, to finish a course you don’t like.
Going on trips and joining book clubs can also be enjoyable ways to increase your knowledge. Or you can ask friends to teach you something that you always wanted to learn.
Learning also has an advantage that’s not always appreciated -- it makes you more open to new experiences.
Laugh more often. No one knows why humor helps us deal with problems, but it usually does. And when you strike out in new directions, problems will almost certainly occur. You might, for example, sign up for the wrong course at a local college. By laughing about the mistake, you won’t let it discourage you from enrolling later in the right course. In fact, laughing at your mistakes is a well-known way to build self-confidence.
Give it a try. Early in life, changing directions can be risky. That’s because we’re on a career path and may also have family obligations. Later in life, the risk is usually lower. Take advantage of the opportunity. If you say, “I can’t do that,” you’ll never really know if you could.
In fact, nearly all late bloomers have one thing in common -- their willingness to take a chance. If you have any doubts, look at the originality of a Grandma Moses painting or read one of Churchill’s defiant wartime speeches.
===============
Bottom Line/Retirement interviewed Connie Goldman, a former host of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and the author of several books, including Secrets of Becoming a Late Bloomer (Fairview). She lives in Hudson, Wisconsin.
Computers: "Virtual Memory is too low"
http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/maintenance/pcproblems.aspx
Virtual memory is the space your computer uses when it's short of RAM (Random Access Memory), which is the memory used when running programs like Microsoft Office Word or Microsoft Office PowerPoint.
So what can you do to correct this problem and prevent this message from coming up in the future? The following are some solutions to keep your computer from displaying the "virtual memory minimum is too low" message.
Solution #1: Bump up the virtual memory size on your computer
The first solution is to increase your computer's virtual memory settings. To do so, you first need to determine how much RAM you currently have.
To increase the virtual memory on your Windows XP computer:
On the Start menu, click My Computer, and then on the left side of the My Computer window, click View system information.
Click the Advanced tab, and then in the Performance area, click Settings.
Click the Advanced tab, and then in the Virtual memory area, click Change.
Selecting the Advanced tab in the Performance Options dialog box
Change the Initial Size (MB) and Maximum size (MB) text boxes to 1.5 times the RAM you have (in MB). For example, if you had 768 MB of RAM, you would enter 1152 MB RAM in both the Initial Size (MB) and Maximum Size (MB) text boxes.
Accessing the Virtual Memory dialog box
Click Set, and then, click OK. A message appears, stating that you will need to restart for the changes to take place. Click OK.
Click OK two times.
You will then be asked if you want to restart your computer. Click Yes or No depending on when you want the changes to take effect.
Solution #2: Add more RAM to your computer
If you keep getting that dreaded "Your system is running low on virtual memory" message—even after you increase your computer's virtual memory—then you may need to buy more memory for your computer. To really work well:
Windows XP needs a minimum of 256 MB of RAM.
Windows Vista needs at least 512 MB of RAM to run, but for some applications (like gaming) 1 GB or more of RAM is recommended.
The more RAM you have, the better.
If you're at work, contact your company's IT administrator before updating the memory on your computer. They may have some memory available and can help you install it.
If you do need to purchase some more memory, stop by your local computer shop. You can probably buy memory from them, and they'll probably install it for you. Or, you can buy memory online.
Yes, I Suck: Self-Help Through Negative Thinking
http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/07/08/yes-i-suck-self-help-through-negative-thinking/
This should take a lot of pressure off. It’s okay to suck. - Ilene
Yes, I Suck: Self-Help Through Negative Thinking
By John Cloud
In the past 50 years, people with mental problems have spent untold millions of hours in therapists’ offices, and millions more reading self-help books, trying to turn negative thoughts like "I never do anything right" into positive ones like "I can succeed." For many people — including well-educated, highly trained therapists, for whom "cognitive restructuring" is a central goal — the very definition of psychotherapy is the process of changing self-defeating attitudes into constructive ones.
But was Norman Vincent Peale right? Is there power in positive thinking? A study just published in the journal Psychological Science says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are.
The study’s authors, Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick, begin with a common-sense proposition: when people hear something they don’t believe, they are not only often skeptical but adhere even more strongly to their original position. A great deal of psychological research has shown this, but you need look no further than any late-night bar debate you’ve had with friends: when someone asserts that Sarah Palin is brilliant, or that the Yankees are the best team in baseball, or that Michael Jackson was not a freak, others not only argue the opposing position, but do so with more conviction than they actually hold. We are an argumentative species.
And so we constantly argue with ourselves. Many of us are reluctant to revise our self-judgment, especially for the better. In 1994, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published a paper showing that when people get feedback that they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better. If you try to tell your dim friend that he has the potential of an Einstein, he won’t think he’s any smarter; he will probably just disbelieve your contradictory theory, hew more closely to his own self-assessment and, in the end, feel even dumber. In one fascinating 1990s experiment demonstrating this effect — called cognitive dissonance in official terms — a team including psychologist Joel Cooper of Princeton asked participants to write hard-hearted essays opposing funding for the disabled. When these participants were later told they were compassionate, they felt even worse about what they had written. (See how to prevent illness at any age.)
For the new paper, Wood, Lee and Perunovic measured 68 students on their self-esteem. The students were then asked to write down their thoughts and feelings for four minutes. Every 15 seconds during those four minutes, one randomly assigned group of the students heard a bell. When they heard it, they were supposed to tell themselves, "I am a lovable person."
Those with low self-esteem — precisely the kind of people who do not respond well to positive feedback but tend to read self-help books or attend therapy sessions encouraging positive thinking — didn’t feel better after those 16 bursts of self-affirmation. In fact, their self-evaluations and moods were significantly more negative than those of the people not asked to remind themselves of their lovability. (See pictures of couples in love.)
This effect can also occur when experiments are more open-ended. The authors cite a 1991 study in which participants were asked to recall either six or 12 examples of instances when they behaved assertively. "Paradoxically," the authors write, "those in the 12-example condition rated themselves as less assertive than did those in the six-example condition. Participants apparently inferred from their difficulty retrieving 12 examples that they must not be very assertive after all."
Wood, Lee and Perunovic conclude that unfavorable thoughts about ourselves intrude very easily, especially among those of us with low self-esteem — so easily and so persistently that even when a positive alternative is presented, it just underlines how awful we believe we are.
The paper provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy that urge people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than try to reject and fight them. In the fighting, we not only often fail but can also make things worse. Mindfulness and meditation techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a larger, more realistic perspective. Call it the power of negative thinking.
Article and photo, courtesy of TIME: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1909019,00.html.
Kodachrome goes away:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/06/mama-takes-kodachrome-away.html
snip from Mish:
I am a photographer with over 80 magazine and book cover credits. I switched from Kodachrome to Fuji Velvia at inception, almost two decades ago. Indeed Velvia quickly displaced Kodachrome as THE film of choice among professionals. However, Kodachrome hung on and on and on. It should have died many years ago.
All film is headed for the ash heap of history, even my favorite Velvia.
Velvia is a brand of daylight-balanced color reversal film produced by the Japanese company Fujifilm. The name is a contraction of "Velvet Media", a reference to its smooth image structure. The original incarnation of the film was called "Velvia for Professionals", known as RVP, a classification code meaning "Reversal/Velvia/Professional series".
Velvia was introduced in 1990 and quickly replaced Kodachrome 25 as the industry standard in high-definition color film. It has brighter and generally more accurate color reproduction, finer grain, twice the speed, and a more convenient process (E-6). Kodachrome 25 fell out of popularity a few years after Velvia was introduced, and Kodachrome 64 and 200 have followed more slowly. Many photographers credit Velvia with ending the Kodachrome era.
Velvia has very saturated colors under daylight, high contrast, and exceptional sharpness. These characteristics make it the slide film of choice for many nature photographers, including such respected artists as Rodney Lough Jr., John Shaw, Steve Parish, Peter Lik, and the late Galen Rowell.
You can see some of my images at MichaelShedlock.Com, most taken on Fuji Velvia. By the way, I am aware of numerous typos on that site, but it has not been updated itself for quite some time.
Times change. Film is out digital is in. Mama, at long last, takes Kodachrome away.
Kodachrome Lyrics By Paul Simon
[more at the link]
Inflation/deflation again.
http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/06/22/some-common-fallacies-about-inflation-and-deflation-the-weimar-nightmare-in-review/
Maybe our INDU will go up to 10 million!
Good article on the inflation/deflation debate. I agree with the author. No serious deflation, ever! (The fall in home prices is just the bursting of a speculative bubble; it is not deflation.)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north722.html
Fron Dr. G:
"I wanted to let you know that in April 2009, I delivered a seminar sponsored by Nutri-Link LTD and held at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, England. Over several sessions totalling nearly seven hours, I discussed the scientific support for our approach to cancer and other degenerative diseases. I reviewed the history of the enzyme treatment of cancer, dating back to Dr. John Beard, the British embryologist who 100 years ago first suggested that the pancreatic enzyme trypsin represents the body's main defense against cancer. Because of the time allotted, I was able to go into more detail than in my other talks.
The recording is available through:
http://newspringpress.com/lectures.html
We are continuing to work on getting the books "The Trophoblast and the Origin of Cancer" and "One Man Alone" published and anticipate they should be available for pre-publication orders within the next few months.
I hope you find this of interest.
Nicholas Gonzalez, MD"
More here: http://www.sawilsons.com/kelleytherapy.htm
A Feel-Good Story for Everyone
Spoiler alert: This story has nothing to do with nutrition.
http://www.jonnybowden.com/2009/06/feel-good-story-for-everyone.html
Well, not directly, any way.
But it does have to do with motivation and commitment, and with persisting in the face of insurmountable odds- something that a lot of people who have tried to tame the demons of food addiction know something about.
On the surface, Danielle Galloway looks like a typical attractive teenager graduating high school this month.
She's 17, she's smart, she's pretty and she's well-spoken. And she's optimistic about the future.
So stop reading for a moment, and think about this: What do you suppose is true about Danielle?
Whatever it is, I guarantee you it's not so.
Danielle Galloway was a homeless teenager.
She spent most of her childhood in 8 different shelters in Atlanta where she and her six- count them, six- siblings- bounced around from shelter to shelter with their mother. She attended no less than ten different schools. Against all odds, she threw herself into her studies, eventually graduating in the top 25% of her class and winning a full scholarship to Boston University where she will become a full time student beginning in September.
Majoring- by the way- in math.
Inspiring? Incredible? You betcha.
You can watch a moving interview with Danielle [at the link]. She talks about the mentors that helped her along the way, the teachers who took her under their wing, the mother who despite obstacles most of us will never experience, managed to raise six terrific kids in a way that gives true meaning to the overused term "family values".
I'm telling you this story for two reasons.
One, it's inspiring and moving and I hope it makes you feel as good as it made me feel when I first heard it.
And two, because it reminds me- and I hope it reminds you- that we don't have to be victims. Not of our "genes", our environment, our food choices, our weight.
And we don't have to be "defeated" when something is really difficult- whether it's losing weight, getting an education, making a relationship work, or just surviving when things look really crummy.
Sometimes we can all use a little reminder of just how powerful we can really be.
Thanks, Danielle, for reminding us.
Hmmm. Picked this up along the way:
In her book Philosophy: Who Needs It, Ayn Rand argues that all of us have a philosophy of life, whether we know it or not. 'Your only choice,' she writes, 'is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought...or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions...'
Another Egg. iHub makes it so easy to post images!
The Egg of Thought
A friend bought me a digital camera and I was testing it out last night. Here's one of my first pictures:
And some other good reading:
http://fairyheart-movement.blogspot.com/
Survival in a changing world:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar09/survival1-03-09.html
http://www.oftwominds.com/
Non-toxic paints
http://www.eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_paints.htm
http://www.greenseal.org/findaproduct/paints_coatings.cfm
http://www.freshairechoicepaint.com/?gclid=CNz39orasZoCFQqenAoddQ6ddA
http://www.ecospaints.com/
http://www.greendepot.com/greendepot/dept.asp?dept_id=4300&s_id=0&WT.svl=ltree&gclid=CPadgbHasZoCFRufnAodBWGCcw
AFM: http://www.greendepot.com/greendepot/dept.asp?dept_name=AFM+Safecoat+Paints+%26+Stains&dept_id=43300&s_id=0
The Allure of Gardening
May 5, 2009
By Jim Hamilton
Buffalo Reflex, Buffalo, Missouri
I can't imagine a more satisfying enterprise than gardening. Well, at least in
April and May, and maybe into June if weeds haven't overtaken my efforts to keep
them at bay.
The objective of vegetable gardening, of course, is food — beans, carrots,
radishes, lettuce, corn, squash and all the other good stuff we harvest. The
thrill of it, though, is something less tangible. It's just watching things
grow. Something primal in each of us revels in new life — plant or animal. I'll
concede that the thrill of watching green beans sprout doesn't equal that of
welcoming a newborn calf or foal, but most of us are more likely to grow gardens
than livestock.
Truth be told, even a gnarly ol' cattleman gets a little excited when his wheat
or rye pasture starting greening up. Forage crops are just gardens on a grand
scale.
Like those forage crops, our family gardens are practical and purposeful
endeavors. We depend on them to fill our pantries and freezers. We've not bought
green beans since Martha took up canning, and we don't have to buy sweet corn,
diced tomatoes or sweet potatoes. If I had a good root cellar I'd never have to
buy Irish potatoes, either.
Fresh garden produce is hard to beat. I'm already anticipating a pot of green
beans and new potatoes cooked with ham hock, and the beans aren't even up yet.
Gardening, though, is as much about anticipation as filling our bellies. Else,
why would I trek out to the garden several times a day just to see if anything I
planted has started to break through the soils? Why would I drag Martha out to
show her the first asparagus spears poking through, or look closely at
strawberry vines for fruit setting on?
Why do any of us watch for the first blush of an early tomato, then check on it
at least once every day? It's not as if that single tomato will add much to our
dinner menu.
The anticipation of that first tomato and other garden produce begins well
before the first clod of dirt is turned. We begin planning for it with the
arrival of plant and seed catalogs in late winter, then nurture our passions
with visits to home and garden shows In deed, for many of us the anticipation
begins even before the last tomato or pumpkin is picked in the fall. We note
what went wrong that season and begin planning for better ways to make things
grow next time around.
Maybe the allure of gardening is even more fundamental than our desire to see
things grow. I suppose that's one for psychologists to study on.
Gardens give us something to look forward to. More than checking the mail every
morning or planning for a holiday, garden events are milestones along the road
ahead — not just the first tomato, but lilac bouquets, strawberries for the
grandkids to pick, green beans to give away, sweet potatoes to dig.
Gardening satisfies in any number of ways, and I suppose we could worry
ourselves gray-headed and weary trying to figure them all.
Maybe the root of it is simply this: We never outgrow our childhood penchant for
digging in dirt. Something about the sweat on our brows and the dirt on our
hands reminds us who we are — country folk one and all with a passion to make
things grow.
http://www.buffaloreflex.com/articles/2009/05/05/opinion/doc49f75e3065d8f284199943.txt
Fiction to read later: The Brick Thrower
http://darksideoffarf.wordpress.com/fiction/the-brick-thrower-part-1/
Hi sbird. Glad you liked it.
Thank you for sharing this one gloe :o).
The Unmistakable Touch of Grace
How to Recognize and Respond to the Spiritual Signposts in Your Life
http://www.cherylrichardson.com/store/the-unmistakable-touch-of-grace-introduction.htm
ONE DECISION, MADE ALMOST twenty years ago, altered the course of my life and brought us here together in this moment. Since then I've come to believe that my life is guided by a powerful Divine force, and when I choose to align myself with this energy, the best and most advantageous path unfolds before me.
I've also learned that there are no coincidences. Every event we experience and every person we meet has intentionally been put in our path to help raise our level of consciousness. When we awaken to this fundamental truth, life becomes a true adventure, a spiritual adventure. The person who smiles at you while you're walking down the street is no longer a stranger. The phone call from an old friend who crossed your mind the day before is no longer a surprise. And the failed relationship that left you brokenhearted is no longer a source of bitterness and pain. Instead it's seen as a blessing in disguise, a gift that makes you stronger, more conscious, and ultimately, more alive.
Over time, as you come to understand these events for what they really are, you recognize that a benevolent force of energy has been available to guide and direct your life all along. I call this energy "the unmistakable touch of grace."
Defining Grace
Grace comes from the Latin word gratia, meaning favor, charm, or thanks. Spiritual traditions from around the world each share a similar understanding of this word. For example, in Sanskrit, grace is akin to the word grnati, which means He praises, and to call or invoke. In Christian terms, grace is defined as the infinite love, mercy, favor, and goodwill shown by God to humankind. In Judaism, the concept of grace is expressed by the Hebrew word hesed, meaning mercy, or loving-kindness. Grace is seen as a creative force — an act of exceptional kindness and goodness. And my friend, Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within, and a leading Buddhist teacher, says, "Grace is the "isness' of life. It's the recognition that everything is connected and sacred. The more in touch we are with this natural abundance of life, the less we need."
To me, grace is a kind of spiritual intelligence, a form of energy that comes from the Divine Source. This energy is available to each and every one of us at any moment. When we connect with and trust this Higher Power and follow its lead, we step into alignment with a larger vision for our lives. We wake up and suddenly become aware of signs, symbols, and messages that lead us to our highest good.
How do you arrive at a place where you view your life from this perspective? By opening your eyes and your heart to a new way of looking at yourself and the world. One decision is all it takes to get started. From there, your life can change in ways you never could have imagined.
Many people begin this journey when faced with a life crisis or challenge that inspires them to begin making different choices. I've seen it time and again in my career as a coach. "Life change" has been the focus of my work for the last eighteen years. I've taught self-management techniques, offered strategies to eliminate procrastination and energy drains, and preached the gospel of self-care from one end of the country to the other. Along the way I've helped people to see the meaning and purpose behind what appear to be random, everyday events that are, in fact, signposts directing them to a new and better life.
My first two books were primarily focused on helping readers to manage their external lives — finances, relationships, or busy schedules. My most recent book, Stand Up for Your Life, shifted gears and challenged readers to turn inward to develop the qualities of character that would allow them to live a more soul-directed life. My writing and teaching have always been a direct result of my own experience. For example, I wrote my first book, Take Time for Your Life, because I didn't have one. And, as I became better able to honor my top priorities, I shared what I learned with others.
Finding the Right Direction
As I considered the topic for this book, I felt conflicted. My head told me to continue to write about tangible topics like overcoming procrastination or improving financial health — topics that I knew were important to my readers' lives. Yet, as I began to develop these ideas on paper, I quickly discovered that my heart wasn't in it. I felt moved to write from a deeper, more personal place about my emergence from an unconscious life and my evolving spiritual journey. I wanted to share what I had learned about the myths of success and the reality of what I believe it takes to lead a meaningful life. I worked on outlines for two different books, and then, faced with a deadline, I did what I often do when I need clarity and inspiration — I went to the beach.
I am blessed to have six miles of federally protected shoreline on an island near my home. The coastline stretches out farther than the eye can see, and I can get lost for hours in the beauty of the open ocean. Once there, I walked along the water's edge and began to pray out loud. "Dear God, I have to make a decision about my next book and I don't know what to do. I'm tired of struggling so I'm surrendering it all to you. Please allow me to be open to seeing the right choice." Then, I continued my walk.
Sometime later the phrase "the unmistakable touch of grace" popped into my head. "Hmm," I thought, "what a beautiful expression." As I slowly made my way down the beach I started to think about how grace has influenced my life.
Since my late twenties, I started noticing unusual occurrences, what some would call coincidences, that provided me with guidance and direction when I felt lost or unsure of myself. I remember one incident early in my career as a professional speaker, when I felt stuck and questioned whether I should continue. I had been looking for a speaker's bureau to represent me and was having trouble finding one. The pressure of trying to make it work was frustrating and one morning, as I was ready to throw in the towel, my phone rang. When I picked it up and said hello, I heard a woman's voice say, "Faith?" "Excuse me?" I replied. "Who are you looking for?" "Faith Richardson," she answered, and a few seconds later the phone went dead. I stood in my living room staring at the receiver in my hand. A smile slowly crossed my face as I realized I had my answer. I needed to trust myself and hang in there. I needed to have faith.
As I thought more about the unmistakable touch of grace during my walk, I could also see that writing about this topic would address the epidemic of fear, anxiety, and disconnectedness I've found in audiences while speaking throughout the country. As I talk to people about their lives, I often see a distant, almost vacant look in their eyes — a look that says "I'm so busy trying to survive my life that I have no soul left to live it." The events of September 11, and the chaos in the Middle East, along with the overwhelming amount of information and stimuli that assault us on a daily basis, have caused our anxiety levels to soar. Living on the edge of uncertainty has made fight or flight our standard operating mode.
As technology continues to give people more ways to intrude on our time, we end up retreating from the world in an attempt to shelter ourselves from a busy, chaotic life. Clients often tell me that they spend so much time on the phone or computer communicating with people at work that they no longer have the energy or desire to talk with their friends or family when they get home. As a result, our most soul-nourishing relationships start to deteriorate and we end up feeling lonely and isolated. We can try to fill the hollowness inside with everything from the latest reality TV show, to overspending, or the restless pursuit of a purposeful career, only to be disappointed when the emptiness remains. It's no wonder most of us feel as though something essential is missing from our lives. There is. We are starved for a connection to the sacred dimension of life.
I understand the dilemma. I feel privileged to have experienced the kind of success that most people only dream of. I've written books that have made the New York Times bestseller list, built a large online community that brings together thousands of people from around the world, and had the amazing opportunity to lead a series on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." As my career took off and my schedule filled up, I got seduced by my own busy life and lost sight of my spiritual center. I became more focused on leaping the next highest bar. One bestseller wasn't enough. There had to be another. As soon as I accomplished an important goal, I automatically moved on to the next, never allowing myself an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of my hard work. Enough was never enough and even when I knew better, it still wasn't enough. These accomplishments (and the life lessons that ensued) gave me the rare opportunity to know for sure that no amount of money, popularity, or success can give us the happiness and peace we all long for. This comes from the daily rituals and practices that keep us connected to our spiritual core.
As someone who has dedicated her life to helping people honor their values and most treasured priorities, it's clear to me the answer to living a genuine, soul-directed life is not just about practicing time management techniques or self-care strategies. While these tools are important, as long as we look for solutions in the outer world to calm our fears and anxieties, or to alleviate our loneliness, we'll always be disappointed. Instead, we need to go deeper. We must embrace what great spiritual teachers have known all along — freedom from suffering and true happiness are found in the connection we share with a power greater than us all.
I left the beach that day with a greater sense of clarity and feeling more excited about the direction I wanted this book to take. So I made a decision to sit with the phrase, "the unmistakable touch of grace," to see what happened.
Later that night while lying in bed, I continued to reflect on my experience and relationship with grace. I truly believe that more than anything else, my commitment to live a spiritually based life has been the source of my success. The more I surrender my will to the Divine, the less I've had to worry about how to achieve anything. Instead, the path finds me. Grace leads me to the exact events and experiences I need at exactly the right time.
There have been striking examples of this throughout my life. Sometimes the messages were like whispers — an unexpected e-mail with a helpful invitation, or a call from a colleague at the exact moment I needed support. Other times, they were like a loud roar commanding my attention. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
Several years ago, my friend Max and I were having a conversation during a sunset walk along the beach. I had just ended a five-year relationship and felt conflicted about my decision. Deep in my heart I knew separating was the right choice, yet I kept feeling pulled to call my former partner to give it one more try. Max, being the good friend that she is, encouraged me to stay true to myself. She suggested that I focus on my own self-care and the new emerging chapter of my life.
Like so many of us who go through a tough life transition, I felt pulled in two directions. In my heart I knew that I needed to hold still and stay strong, but my head screamed, "Call him!" I felt as though I was caught in an emotional battle of wills, struggling to keep the peace between two feuding factions.
As Max and I continued our conversation, I said that I needed a sign — some kind of divine confirmation to help me make the right choice. Just then, I looked up and saw a man running toward us. He was striking; muscular and tanned, with piercing blue eyes. When he passed us, Max and I looked at each other and smiled, acknowledging his powerful energy. We continued our walk and eventually headed for the car.
Arriving at the parking lot, we sat down to put on our shoes. Taking one more look out over the ocean, I once again saw the same man running back down the beach. As my eyes followed him, he suddenly stopped, bent down and started to scratch something in the sand with his finger. After a few moments he finished and continued on his way. Max and I immediately ran to see what he had written.
When we arrived at the water's edge we found the words MENTAL TOUGHNESS scrawled in the sand. Stunned, I stood looking at the words, amazed at how appropriate and timely they were for me. When I glanced up to find the angel who had delivered this message, he was nowhere in sight. Instantly I felt a sense of relief and reassurance. I knew I had my answer — hold still and stay strong.
Stories like this are powerful examples of grace in action. They give us comfort and a sense of direction. Sometimes we see the influence of grace in hindsight when we step back and view our lives from a higher perspective. When I look back at my early years in high school, I can see that the two teachers who fueled my passion for reading set the stage for my future career as a writer. Or, the difficulties I faced in my relationships with men were exactly what I needed to build the solid core of self-esteem and inner strength that I would rely on to face the challenges of life. Even the most agonizing experiences of all — the death of a loved one and the diagnosis of a serious illness, turned out to be blessings; pivotal events that dramatically altered the way I live my life today.
Conducting My Own Experiment
The morning after the phrase “the unmistakable touch of grace” first came to me, I woke feeling energized and excited. If I was going to write about grace, I wanted to engage this energy and allow it to guide my next steps. I made a decision to keep that phrase in my mind and watch for what showed up in my life. Almost immediately I began to see the signs.
That afternoon a friend called, excited to share a story of what she called synchronicity. Emma was a new writer who’d been invited to submit an article to her local newspaper. Even though she’d done a terrific job with her first draft, she kept procrastinating about finishing it up and sending it to her editor. After admitting her hesitation, Emma revealed that, like most new writers, she was afraid of having her article rejected. Each time she got close to hitting the send button on her e-mail, she’d freeze and back away.
Two days later, Emma attended a professional women’s luncheon. When introductions were being made around the table, Emma was shocked to discover that the assistant editor of the newspaper was sitting next to her. During the meal, the two women struck up a conversation and Emma shared her dilemma about the article. The editor, sympathetic to the anxiety that new writers experience, offered to look at the article, off the record, and suggest changes if necessary. Her support was all Emma needed. When she arrived home after the luncheon, she immediately sent the article to the editor. Three weeks later, she was a published writer.
Was it merely a coincidence that Emma was seated next to this editor? Could be. But after the many times I’ve witnessed these kinds of events, both in my life and in the lives of others, I no longer believe this to be the case. Instead, I see them as examples of how recognizing and acting on the effects of grace leads us in the best direction for our lives.
The signs continued. Later that week while driving to the cleaners to pick up a dress for an anniversary celebration with my husband, Michael, I noticed the beautiful peonies that were blooming in our neighborhood. These flowers had been a special part of our wedding day and I made a mental note to pick some up on my way home. When I finished my errands, I pulled in the driveway, only to realize that I had forgotten to get the flowers. Feeling pressed for time, I decided to let it go. I parked the car, gathered my bags, and headed for the front door.
Just then my neighbor, Gail, arrived with a gorgeous bunch of pink and white peonies in her arms. “Hey Cheryl,” she said, “I just finished cutting these from my garden and wondered if you might like some.” I smiled, feeling strongly that, once again, I was touched by the hand of grace. To me, it was one more sign that I was on the right track with the book.
There were plenty of other signs telling me that I needed to write about grace. A favorite magazine arrived with a cover story entitled “Living a Life of Grace.” After discussing the idea of grace with a member of my staff, she called later that day to say that grace had been the topic of her yoga class. And of course, it seemed that every time I got in my car to drive somewhere a Grace Happens bumper sticker was staring me in the face.
The final message came two days later after a speaking engagement in Manhattan. While there, I had dinner with a friend who introduced me to a woman named Michele. Michele was an intuitive consultant and writer. During our conversation, she suggested that I take a look at her website to learn more about her work. As I jotted down her address, Michele also said, “Be sure to check out ‘word magic.’ It’s an area that visitors seem to love.” I included word magic in my notes and continued our conversation.
The next day, as I sat in my office going through the notes from my trip, I came across Michele’s information. I logged on to her website and clicked on the phrase, word magic. I discovered that it was a prophetic game whereby the visitor holds a question in mind while several colored spheres circle around the page to the sound of calming music. Then, when ready, the visitor clicks on a sphere to reveal a word that represents the answer.
As I watched the spheres on the screen I focused on my question: “Which topic do I need to write about in my next book?” Then, I stopped for a moment, closed my eyes and pictured the spheres. When I opened my eyes I was immediately drawn to a lavender colored one, and, without hesitation, clicked on it and waited to see what happened. I saw the word grace appear and float slowly toward me on the screen. I felt chills run through my body; I could hardly believe what I was seeing.
Being a skeptic by nature, I immediately called Michele. Like so many of us who get Divine signs, I doubted my experience and wanted to know what the odds were of seeing the word grace. I was convinced that each of the eight spheres represented one word and I had a one out of eight chance of choosing it — odds that, to me, weren’t very impressive. As luck would have it, Michele immediately picked up the phone. She was shocked to hear my voice on the other end. “I was just sending you an e-mail.” Another coincidence?
When I asked Michele about the game, she told me that there were more than seventy-five words available to be assigned to a sphere at any given moment. And, since the words were assigned at random with each visit to her site, the chances of choosing the sphere that represented grace was pretty slim. Several weeks later my friend Ed, a mathematics professor, confirmed this when he informed me that the odds of seeing that word appear were more than a million to one.
Some might say that these events were simply the result of focusing my attention on the topic of grace. And, in the past, I would have thought so too. But, experience has taught me that these examples are not just the result of wishful thinking. They are a response from a Divine Source that guides and directs my life.
Science tells us that the universe vibrates with the same force of energy that created it in the first place; the same energy that created you and me. As we raise our level of consciousness and learn to work in partnership with this Divine energy, it provides a feedback loop of sorts, a way of communicating with us that takes the form of signs. The more awake or conscious we are, the better able we are to see these signs for what they really are — unmistakable evidence of how grace shapes our lives.
My friend Peter, a recovering alcoholic, said it well: “Before I got sober, I couldn’t see a Divine sign if it hit me in the face. I was living under the influence, too unconscious to recognize that a power greater than myself was attempting to offer the guidance and support I needed to change my life. When I finally woke up and got into recovery, things changed dramatically. Suddenly I could see the gifts of grace everywhere. They were constant reminders that I was not alone and that as long as I stayed sober and paid attention, I’d be guided to the life I was meant to live.”
I’ve watched this same kind of thing happen in my work with clients. Regardless of their beliefs or spiritual orientation, once clients made the decision to wake up, they could see and experience grace. For example, I’d watch the president of a company cut back on his hours at work to spend more time with his family, only to have his sales increase. Or, conversely I’d see a stay-at-home mom with special artistic talent decide to bring her paintings to a gallery where an influential owner would steer her to great success.
Over time, as I watched what happened, one thing became quite clear — grace was unmerited. People didn’t need to work hard to earn it, feel worthy enough to deserve it, or surrender their needs to receive it. The gift of grace had been available all along. They just needed to be awake enough to see it. Then, from this more conscious perspective, they would engage this power as they faced the truth about what wasn’t working in their lives and began making changes. Doors would open, resources would appear, and a veil of uncertainty would lift, revealing their next step. Seeing evidence of grace allowed them to trust that there was a higher purpose for their lives, and this fueled a desire for a more conscious relationship with this Divine, creative force.
Some clients called this force God; others called it Providence, the Universe, or Spirit. There were some who had no name at all. They had lost touch with a spiritual way of life or had experienced a crisis of faith, when they felt angry with God or disconnected altogether. As a result, they needed to redefine their relationship with a Higher Power. I had been through this process myself. For years I felt uncomfortable with the word God because of the fear-based, parental relationship I had been encouraged to form during my early religious training. It wasn’t until years later, when I made a conscious decision to combine the comforting, religious rituals of my youth with the spiritual values and practices I developed as an adult, that I would establish a new relationship with God. Although I now feel comfortable using the word God, I often use the word Divine when working with clients, in an effort to be respectful of their beliefs. Based on what I saw happening around me, it was clear that grace was operating in the lives of the people I worked with, regardless of their religious orientation.
I began to understand the significance of the phrase “the unmistakable touch of grace,” and I was starting to believe more strongly that my prayer on the beach had pointed me in the right direction. Once I decided to move forward, I went back through my life looking for how my own relationship with grace had evolved over time. I read through twenty-five years worth of journals, and when I was finished, spoke with friends, clients, and members of my online community about their experiences with grace. As I sorted through this information, I wanted to find a way to help people open more fully to the presence of grace in their lives. This book is the result of that journey.
The Promise
By embarking on this adventure you’ll awaken to the presence of grace in your own life and sometimes, the lives of others. Whether you already feel a connection to a Higher Power or not, pretty soon you’ll find that your anxiety, fear, or uncertainty about the future will gradually be replaced with the comfort and security of knowing:
You are not alone. There is a powerful, supportive energy guiding your life and it always has your best interest at heart. When you call upon it for guidance and support, it will respond. Spiritual signposts will be put in your path to guide you to your highest good. Follow them! You have a higher purpose for your life. The more you surrender to Divine will and allow grace to lead, the more you’ll find that the right doors open to support you in fulfilling your life’s purpose. You’ll learn to recognize and respond to them. Walk through those doors with courage and faith. You have what it takes to face any life challenge. As a human being you will experience loss, disappointment, failure, and fear. But you don’t have to suffer. As a matter of fact, your most challenging life circumstance may turn out to be your greatest blessing. Your reliance on the power of grace will give you the faith and spiritual fortitude to face life’s ups and downs with confidence and poise. You are a student in the school of life. As you view your life from a higher, more spiritual perspective, you’ll begin to see that everything happens for a reason. Every event, experience, and person you encounter is intended to support your soul development. Take advantage of these opportunities. You have the peace and happiness you desire already within you. When you deepen your connection to the Divine by balancing activity with silence, you’ll discover the true source of all joy and happiness. You’ll experience a heightened sensitivity to beauty, deep inner peace, and a profound feeling of connectedness to all living things. Enjoy these gifts. The journey you’re about to take is exciting and full of promise. As you read through each chapter, allow yourself to drink in the inspiration of the stories first, without worrying about having to do anything. Stories themselves are a powerful source of grace. They give us insight and provide us with inspiration that shifts our thinking or way of being in the world.
Once you’ve finished reading a chapter, you’ll be ready to conduct the experiment.
The Experiments
At the end of each chapter I’ve included an experiment designed to help you recognize and use the power of grace in your own life. Think of yourself as a spiritual scientist, ready to explore new territories that will alter your view of the world forever. You may also want to assemble your own team of scientists. Invite one or more people to work through this book with you. While you can conduct these experiments on your own, you’ll dramatically increase your ability to see the influence of grace in your life by witnessing its effects on others. If you’re unable to find someone, don’t worry. We’ve made it easy for you to locate like-minded people in your community, by using our free global database of Life Makeover Groups on our website at www.cherylrichardson.com. There you’ll find all the tools and resources you need to find or start a group in your hometown. As I write this book, more than four thousand groups are already in action around the world.
The Resource Sections
At the end of each experiment I’ve included a list of resources to help further your spiritual exploration. These books, websites, and other programs have been helpful during the various stages of my journey. They provide a variety of perspectives and teachings. And, while some may contain information or opinions that differ from your own, I encourage you to keep an open mind. The influence of grace is often found in unexpected places.
This book is filled with stories of how grace has touched my life and the lives of clients, friends, and members of our online community. While some stories may seem unbelievable, all of them are true (some names and details have been changed). It is my prayer that this book serve as inspiration and motivation to open you more fully to your own divinity and the sacred dimension of life. At a time when so many of us feel hopeless and powerless to change the troubled world in which we live, it’s important to remember that there is a Divine power far greater than anything else that exists on the planet — a power that resides within each of us. When we learn to align our own Divine nature with the ultimate Creative Source, miracles happen. As Ramakrishna said, “The winds of grace are always blowing, but you have to raise the sail.” This book is my gift to you in the hopes that it will help you to do just that.
Experiment: Finding Grace
The first experiment is designed to help you become more aware of the presence of grace. There are five parts to this experiment:
1. Start a grace journal. Find a journal or notebook that’s easy to use for the experiments throughout this book.
2. On the first page of your journal, write the following:
I am open and receptive to the power of grace in my life now.
I ask to be shown clear examples of how this energy is operating in my life.
3. Now, declare out loud that you are open to the influence of grace. As silly as this may sound, it’s important to get in the habit of consciously working with this energy. Try it right now. Repeat the following statement:
I am open and receptive to the power of grace in my life now.
I ask to be shown clear examples of how this energy is operating in my life.
Develop a ritual of writing this statement in your journal every morning and night, and when you do, repeat it out loud. (If you really want to accelerate the process, repeat it at random times throughout the day).
4. Begin to focus on the concept of grace. Notice what shows up in your life and write about it in your journal. Does the word come up in conversations? Do you find it in a magazine article, or on bumper stickers? Start to keep track of the signs of grace that are already in your life.
5. Finally, sometimes we experience grace in how we relate to the stories of others. As you read through each chapter, pay close attention to the reactions you have to the stories you read. Does one push your buttons, move you to tears, make you angry, or cause you to daydream?
Mark the stories and write about any insights, similarities, or reactions in your journal.
Resources
BOOKS
Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment by Lama Surya Das (Broadway Books, 2004)
This book provides a great introduction to Buddhism by exploring the ancient teachings in a modern-day voice.
Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles by Marianne Williamson
(Riverhead Books, 2002)
A beautiful book about harnessing the mystical power within so we can change ourselves and the world.
Roadsigns: Navigating Your Path to Spiritual Happiness by Philip Goldberg, Ph.D. (Rodale, 2003)
This book provides a realistic look at the twists and turns of the spiritual journey and provides wise, common-sense advice on making life choices.
To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking by Harold S. Kushner (Warner Books, 1994)
Kushner discusses the essence of Judaism in simple and clear language, touching upon the meaning of Jewish customs and ceremonies, and the purpose of prayer.
What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey (Zondervan, 1997)
A Christian perspective on the meaning of grace told through stories and examples from everyday life.
Dear Reader,
As we move more deeply into economic recession, a question many people are asking is "how long will it last?" There's a widespread assumption that it is only a matter of time before we return to the business as usual of economic growth and people shopping more again. "Won't be long now", the optimists say, "it could be years or even decades", reply those who think it won't be so easy.
Outside of this debate, there's a third, more pessimistic assessment: the days of plentiful material resources are coming to an end, we are witnessing a collapse of our ecological capital, we are entering an era of new uncertainties.
Whichever of these views turns out to be correct (and I see more evidence for the third), one thing that will help us in these times of challenge is the quality of resilience.
Resilience is the ability of a system (whether an individual, a community or an economy) to hold together and function in the face of change and shocks. It involves having the capacity to deal with adversity, bounce back from setbacks, and develop new ways of doing things when current approaches are causing problems. While we often only find our resilience when we're in situations where we need it, research also shows resiliency to be teachable. We can learn to improve our bounceback-ability; I'd like to introduce six principles that help this.
The first is to recognize that crisis can be a turning point; whether it becomes so or not depends, in part, on how much we put ourselves behind this possibility. By training ourselves in the things that make positive turnings more likely, like courage, creative problem solving and community building, we strengthen our ability to play a part in turning things around. The turnarounds needed aren't about going back to how things were before; they are about restoring function and wellbeing. On a much larger scale, the story of the Great Turning applies this principle of crisis as turning point in looking at how we restore healthy functioning and wellbeing in our society and world.
The second principle is to recognize that resilience has both material and psychological dimensions. The adversities we face are often linked to materials we're dependent on being in short supply, for example, money in a recession, water in a drought or fuel after we hit peak oil. The Transition approach, as described in Rob Hopkins' Transition Handbook, strengthens community resilience by reducing our dependence on substances we know are going to become scarce. It involves addressing the material side of our dependence by creatively developing new ways to meet our needs, for example, increasing local food production. It also addresses the psychological aspects of dependence, acknowledging how we can become accustomed to, or even hooked on, higher levels of resource use than we really need. Similarly, in a recession, we need creativity in meeting our material needs and psychological insight to develop happy, fulfilling lives with much lower levels of consumption.
Each year, I organize The Bristol Happiness Lectures (see item 29 below) to bring into view and explore the stories we tell about what's needed for a fulfilling life. The third principle of resilience is one we touch upon at every event because of its potency in helping maintain good mood. It is gratitude, where we appreciate the resources and benefits already available to us. If you find yourself running into difficult times, ask yourself "who am I grateful to?" As you call into mind those you have to thank, you bring into view the web of relationships that can help sustain you. A true story I recently heard on BBC Radio 4 powerfully illustrates how this can contribute to resilience.
For over thirty years, Peter had worked for a major UK bank, and for the last six of these, he'd been based in the Republic of Georgia. Just two days before he was due to return home to South Wales, he was kidnapped. He spent the next four months in a tiny underground cell, alone, in the dark and with a chain round his neck. His guards allowed him one candle each day, giving just forty minutes of light to see the dead rats he shared his cell with. To counter the overwhelming feelings of isolation, Peter gave himself the project of composing and delivering a speech each day to a different member of his family. As well as his close relatives, he went through all his cousins, second cousins, aunts and uncles, dredging up whatever memories he could access. Talking to them in his mind, he found a source of strength that helped him keep going and eventually to escape.
When we remember who or what we're grateful to, we know we're not alone. The good feelings gratitude evokes also act as an emotional buffer, putting us in a stronger position to face and deal with awfulness. The fourth principle is about looking current reality, however disturbing, in the eye, and, if it hurts, saying ouch! Our emotional reactions play an important survival function, alerting us to danger and energizing our response. The distress of anxiety can shock us out of complacency, the pain of grief registers the value of what is being lost. The danger is that without these, we might calmly plod on in a business as usual mode that fails to take in the reality of a crisis.
Once we've experienced the full alarm brought by painful feelings, we're left with the challenge of finding our response. When facing crisis in the world, it is easy to feel defeated, overwhelmed or despairing. What can we do when it is hard to believe we can make any difference? The fifth principle of resilience involves recognizing that breakthroughs are often linked with new ways of seeing. A willingness to explore and try out approaches different to those we're familiar with can open up options for moving forward. A perspective I find tremendously fruitful when facing challenging situations is to think of myself as a character in an adventure story. The words restore and re-story only differ by a letter, and changing the storyline we see ourselves as part of can be remarkably restoring of resilience. Adventures, as I've discussed in previous editions of this newsletter, usually begin by presenting dangers far beyond what we believe we can deal with. The plot involves rising to the challenge, developing new strengths, encountering allies and doing our best to find a way through. When we're in that story, it is easier to accept our falls, fears, failures and feeble moments as just part of the journey. But we still come back for another chapter, we engage in the quest of doing our bit.
While we're on the topic of perspectives supportive of resilience, a concept I find inspiring is that of post-traumatic growth. You can think of this as the opposite of post-traumatic stress syndrome. The focus is on how situations ghastly at the time can draw out qualities and strengths we later come to value. If we look this way at the recession, we can see it as a spur for positive transformation. There are things that are going to hurt. Some are already feeling the pain as they lose their jobs, homes and economic security. There are areas of the world where people are also losing their lives. These are times we need resilience. And with this may come the shaking off of old ways that no longer work, along with an opening up to new perspectives and better ways of doing things.
So crisis, even our multi-faceted global crisis, can become a turning point. Our last principle is about doing our bit to make this more likely. Every day take a step, no matter how small, that contributes to the turning you'd like to see occur. And you'll know you aren't alone: there's a larger story acting through you.
With you in this Great Turning adventure
Chris.
Chris Johnstone
Editor, The Great Turning Times.
http://campaign.constantcontact.com/render?v=001hBHh2V5GQeJVZR1nT8rpMP8Jib3qutU1
uMY0ZMe9GZLGlHDDb8-e4l5wojUaQKtCARWNkZUpMcyo_OgrUHCpmOaN4o-wev_qmKTaQepWQzo%3D
Know your states game.
http://jimspages.com/States.htm
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2008 results.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm
I think of this as the "it was a dark and stormy night" contest.
Meat Quality
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/03/07/Ethical-Meat-and-Unethical-Hype--A-Look-at-All-Natural-GrassFed-and-Other-HalfTruths.aspx
March 07 2009
Ethical Meat and Unethical Hype -- A Look at 'All Natural', 'Grass-Fed' and Other Half-Truths
Marketing departments like to invent terms that sound good but mean anything -- non-enforceable claims don’t result in lawsuits. Here’s an overview of what labels on the meat you buy actually mean:
All Natural: This means meat that is minimally processed with no artificial or synthetic products. It is not regulated, however, so anyone can put it on their package. It is a claim with no clout.
Cool (Country of Origin Labeling): A USDA regulated label stating where meat was raised, slaughtered, and processed.
Grass Fed: A USDA regulated label meaning, very narrowly, that that animals ate grass. According to the USDA definition, “grass-fed” animals can also be fed grain, and can be raised on grass in confinement, as long as they have access to pasture -- although "access" can be, and often is, nothing more than a facility with a door to a small outdoor area.
Free Range: This means only that the animal has some access to the outdoors. There is no regulation for use of this term, except in the case of chickens raised for consumption. “Pasture-raised” is a more meaningful term.
Organic: This label is USDA and third-party certified. It means that livestock wasn’t treated with hormones or antibiotics and was fed a pesticide-free diet.
Vegetarian Fed: This refers only to an animal’s diet and does not guarantee the animal was pastured or raised humanely.
Air Chilled: This refers to the treatment of living animals. Producers and retailers may also make claims about how the animal is handled between slaughter and purchase. Meat may be wet or dry-aged, frozen, and packaged in various ways.
Humanely Raised/Certified Humane: Many ranches now choose to undergo an audit by third parties such as Animal Welfare Association and Humane Farmed to highlight their extra care. This type of label states that no practices such as overcrowding, castrating, early weaning, or denying animals access to pasture used.
Biodynamic: This pre-organic standard treats the whole ranching operation as an interrelated whole. While some meats are technically organic, a biodynamic farm assures the meat also came from a healthy, self-sustaining system.
Local: Producers who take part in this affidavit program state in writing that the animals were raised within 20 miles. This label is not certified or confirmed by a third party.
============
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
The numerous labels that do little but confuse consumers about the essentials of what they’re buying are aggravating to say the least.
Fortunately, it is possible to find what you’re looking for. I’d like to expand on the “grass-fed” label mentioned above, and point out your very best option when it comes to buying wholesome grass-fed beef and other meats.
The USDA Grass-Fed Label
As of November 15, 2007, the USDA enacted new standards for the grass-fed label. According to this new USDA marketing claim standard:
Grass and forage shall be the feed source consumed for the lifetime of the ruminant animal, with the exception of milk consumed prior to weaning.
The diet shall be derived solely from forage consisting of grass (annual and perennial), forbs (e.g., legumes, Brassica), browse, or cereal grain crops in the vegetative (pre-grain) state.
Animals cannot be fed grain or grain byproducts and must have continuous access to pasture during the growing season.
Hay, haylage, baleage, silage, crop residue without grain, and other roughage sources may also be included as acceptable feed sources.
Routine mineral and vitamin supplementation may also be included in the feeding regimen. If incidental supplementation occurs due to inadvertent exposure to non-forage feedstuffs or to ensure the animal’s well being at all times during adverse environmental or physical conditions, the producer must fully document (e.g., receipts, ingredients, and tear tags) the supplementation that occurs including the amount, the frequency, and the supplements provided.
Sounds good! In order to carry the “grass-fed” label, the animal must have foraged on nothing but grass for its entire lifetime.
But there’s a twist, and a few other issues you may not have thought of.
These standards are voluntary, so in order for you to determine whether or not this standard is actually being met, in addition to the “grass-fed” label, the meat you buy would also need to carry the “USDA Process Verified” label.
There’s another slight problem with this standard. As pointed out by the American Grassfed Association, the definition of "growing season" means that animals could be confined for long periods, and can be kept off of pasture even when there is grass growing.
The new rules also do not restrict the use of antibiotics and hormones in the animals.
So although it aimed higher than any standards we had before, even the USDA grass-fed labels won’t offer you all the assurances you’d expect from truly organic, grass-fed beef.
Another issue frequently overlooked is that of cost to the farmer.
The USDA regulatory system has a tendency to favor big business, which can easily afford the USDA’s costly certification fees. Small farmers, who are often raising food in traditional, healthy ways, then are not able to legally call their products “USDA grass-fed” because they haven’t paid the USDA for that privilege.
Why All the Fuss About Grass-Fed Meat?
Grass-fed beef is vastly superior to grain-fed beef, and in fact it’s the clear beef of choice you should be eating. It is far more important to choose grass-fed than to choose organic, as most grass-fed beef are also organic.
Not only is it raised in a more sustainable way for the environment, and a more humane way for the animal, but it’s the superior choice for your health.
Grass-fed beef, for instance, is lower in fat than regular beef and, more importantly, contains higher amounts of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fatty acid. Grass-fed animals have from three to five times more CLA than grain-fed animals.
CLA has been making headlines for its extreme health benefits, which include:
Fighting cancer and diabetes
Helping you lose weight
Increasing your metabolic rate, a positive benefit for promoting normal thyroid function
Helping you maintain normal cholesterol and triglyceride levels
Enhancing your immune system
The article “Better Beef,” written by California rancher Dave Evans, gives a great in-depth view of the many benefits of grass-fed beef, from environmental sustainability to the sheer difference in taste and nutrient content of the beef.
Keep in mind that grass-fed meat is almost always preferable to certified organic meat also because most organic beef is fed organic corn, which is what causes the myriad of health problems associated with eating beef. If you can find organic, grass-fed meat, that would be ideal.
Your Best Bet When Looking for True Grass-Fed Meats
Remember, grass-fed meat doesn’t have to be “certified” grass-fed for it to give you health benefits.
Your best bet, which circumvents the labeling confusion altogether, is to get in touch with a local farmer (try finding a farmer’s market or community-supported agriculture program in your area to do this) who can verify that the products are raised on pasture, without antibiotics and pesticides.
By going straight to the source, you’re likely getting the absolute best meat there is, USDA-certified or not.
If you don’t have access to a local farmer near you, here is a list of grass-fed beef ranchers in the United States that can ship good quality meats right to your door:
U.S. Wellness Meats
Panorama Meats – Black Angus and Red Angus
www.panoramameats.com
Country Natural Beef – Hereford and Angus
www.countrynaturalbeef.com
Tallgrass Beef
www.tallgrassbeef.com
Niman Ranch – A network of more than 600 independent farmers and ranchers, and probably the easiest to find locally
www.nimanranch.com
Pacific Village – Entirely grass-fed cattle since 2002
www.newseasonsmarket.com
Thanks for your input.
Good post Gloe. I was going to mention Tumeric then saw you have it at the bottom. I would make a couple of points.
Green Tea is of major benefit IMO and there is now a huge array of flavors especially from Stash (seriously) and Tazo. I used to be a coffee/cig freak so if I can migrate so can anyone.
Muellin Tea helps the lungs a lot. Kefir (try the fruit flavors) is good for the immune system.
I have a few small Kidney Stones (a hangover from my coffee/salt days I think) and had a check up a while back. Somewhat to my surprise Swiss Chard and Spinach were two of the big no-no's for anyone with a tendency to form stones (salt and lack of liquid being the real demons). Broccli is okay and offers similar benefits.
John
The Best Healthy Foods you aren't eating already
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/the-11-best-foods-you-arent-eating/?
ex=1247029200&en=935e4587a3d300fb&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=HL-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M077-ROS-0109-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click
Nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden has created several lists of healthful foods people should be eating but aren’t. But some of his favorites, like purslane, guava and goji berries, aren’t always available at regular grocery stores. I asked Dr. Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth,” to update his list with some favorite foods that are easy to find but don’t always find their way into our shopping carts. Here’s his advice.
Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.
How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.
Cabbage: Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes.
How to eat: Asian-style slaw or as a crunchy topping on burgers and sandwiches.
Swiss chard: A leafy green vegetable packed with carotenoids that protect aging eyes.
How to eat it: Chop and saute in olive oil.
Cinnamon: May help control blood sugar and cholesterol.
How to eat it: Sprinkle on coffee or oatmeal.
Pomegranate juice: Appears to lower blood pressure and loaded with antioxidants.
How to eat: Just drink it.
Dried plums: Okay, so they are really prunes, but they are packed with antioxidants.
How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked.
Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.
How to eat: Roasted as a snack, or sprinkled on salad.
Sardines: Dr. Bowden calls them “health food in a can.” They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.
How to eat: Choose sardines packed in olive or sardine oil. Eat plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.
Turmeric: The “superstar of spices,” it may have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
How to eat: Mix with scrambled eggs or in any vegetable dish.
Frozen blueberries: Even though freezing can degrade some of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, frozen blueberries are available year-round and don’t spoil; associated with better memory in animal studies.
How to eat: Blended with yogurt or chocolate soy milk and sprinkled with crushed almonds.
Canned pumpkin: A low-calorie vegetable that is high in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A; fills you up on very few calories.
How to eat: Mix with a little butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.
You can find more details and recipes on the Men’s Health Web site, which published the original version of the list last year.
Spices: New Year, Younger You -- 20 Anti-Aging Herbs and Spices to Add to Your Diet
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/01/08/new-year-younger-you-20-anti-aging-herbs-and-spices-to-add-to-your-diet.aspx
The typical American diet that is high in simple carbohydrates--white flour, white salt, and processed food--is aging us. We are getting all the bulk without the nutrients, plus adding to our propensity for developing real food cravings. So whether you are a vegetarian or an omnivore, you can start to reverse aging by simply choosing to eat the right foods to keep you full of vim, vigor, and vitality, especially over the holidays.
T
he easiest way to make sure you are getting more nutrients into every meal.
Every time you flavor your meals with herbs or spices you are literally "upgrading" your food without adding a single calorie. You are taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary by adding color, flavor, vitamins, and often medicinal properties.
Here's why:
* Spices and herbs maximize nutrient density. Herbs and spices contain antioxidants, minerals and multivitamins. At the cocktail party, choose the Thai chicken satay stick over the tried and true fried chicken strip.
* Spices and herbs create a more thermogenic diet. Because spices are nutrient dense, they are thermogenic, which means they naturally increase your metabolism.
* Some spices and herbs increase your overall feeling of fullness and satiety, so you'll eat less. One study conducted at Maanstricht University in the Netherlands showed that when one consumes an appetizer with half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes before each meal, it decreased their calorie intake by 10-16 percent.
* Spices and herbs have real medicinal properties. Study after study shows the benefits of distinct herbs and spices. For example, one 2003 trial of 60 people with type 2 diabetes reported that consuming as little as two teaspoons of cinnamon daily for six weeks reduced blood-glucose levels significantly. It also improved blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, perhaps because insulin plays a key role in regulating fats in your body.
Choose flavor over blandness every time, and try to incorporate these specific herbs and spices into your diet if you have the following health concerns:
*rosemary and basil for their anti-inflammatory power
*cumin and sage for their dementia-fighting power
*cayenne and cinnamon for their obesity-fighting power
*coriander and cinnamon for their sugar regulating powers
*lemon grass, nutmeg, bay leaves and saffron for their calming effects on your mood
*turmeric for its cancer fighting power
*oregano for its fungus-beating power
*garlic, mustard seed and chicory for their heart-pumping power
*basil and thyme for their skin-saving power
*turmeric, basil, cinnamon, thyme, saffron, and ginger for their immune-boosting power
*coriander, rosemary, cayenne, allspice and black pepper for their depression-busting power
Sources:
The Huffington Post December 20, 2008
Printer ink cartridges --
How You are Being Cheated on Your Ink Jet Cartridges
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/22/how-you-are-being-cheated-on-your-ink-jet-cartridges.aspx
PC World magazine decided to test printer cartridges that registered as having run out of ink, and the results confirm what you may have suspected -- many cartridges leave a startling amount of ink unused when they read empty. In fact, some inkjet printers force users to replace black ink cartridges when the cartridge is nearly half full.
They tested printers from four major manufacturers: Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, and Kodak. The models from Canon, Epson, and Kodak reported ink cartridges as being empty when in some cases the tanks had 40 percent of their black ink remaining. The quantity of unused ink ranged from about 8 percent in an Epson-brand cartridge to 45 percent in a cartridge for a Canon printer. And the printers wouldn't resume printing until a new cartridge was inserted.
There are valid reasons for not draining an ink cartridge completely -- many inks, if they run dry, can cause significant damage to the printer. However, printer owners are still probably throwing away a lot of usable ink. And consider that an average black-ink cartridge contains 8 milliliters of ink and costs about $10 -- which translates into a cost of $1250 per liter of ink.
"I personally think that consumers are getting ripped off," says Steve Pociask, president of the American Consumer Institute. Pociask recently coauthored a 50-page study on the ink jet printer and cartridge market.
Honestly, I can’t stand waste of any kind (not to mention the thought of all that ink potentially ending up in landfills and contaminating our environment), so I think this is an important issue to let everyone know about. If you haven’t already gone paperless, much of the money you spend on ink cartridges may be wasted, and who can afford that nowadays?
Fortunately, the handy tips and tricks contained in my previous article Your Printer is Lying to You and Wasting Your Money can save you lots of money by showing you what to do, so you don’t have to replace your ink cartridges before they’re completely empty.
Sources:
PC World
Related Articles:
Self-Copying Paper, Photocopying Linked To Health Problems
How to Go Paperless: Bury the Paper Before it Buries You Alive
How to Burn CDs Without Paying Through the Nose
Community Comments ( 11 )
Novice User
I am a firmer believer and user of refill kits.
I won't post a link, but you can easily find them via google search. (Buy quality! It is worth it.)
I've refilled the same cartridge more than a dozen times before the cartridge itself wore out.
On my printer, that's $35/cartridge X 12 = $420 in new cartridges,
as opposed to my estimates:
$10/refill kit @ 3 refills per kit = $40 in refill kits.
Sorry about the dodgy math, but I have saved money. I usually let the computer do the math. :D
Novice User
Mr John
u r absolutely correct, i also use same method and its really marvelous and a lot money saving...
Novice User
It is so frustrating when my HP won't print anymore because of a supposedly empty or even low ink cartridge! The most frustrating part is that it won't let me print in black and white when a colored cartridge is out!
Novice User
I also have ink cartridge issues. I found that by removing my color cartridge and leaving black in, and then going under printer options and selecting "grayscale-black cartridge only" I can use my black cartridge after my color (and more expensive) ink cartridge is supposedly empty. Hope this will work for you.
Novice User
Have you tried removing the cartridge, then putting it back in and calling it a full cartridge. It works for some printers.
Refilling is the answer.
Novice User
Thankfully my printer still allows me to print even after it says it was empty. Which btw I got ALOT more ink out of my black LONG after they told me it was empty. I will change my ink when it is not printing correctly, ink looks speratic, because Im out, its not hard to tell. Furthermore, unless I am in need of a good ink job like pictures or so I will ALWAYS print on draft, Ive been doing this for yrs so its basic on most all printers. This saves ALOT of ink & the copies are generally just fine for what you need even legal papers.
princesscohen, I find that too, with my Canon printer. I just ignore the 'empty' sign until the quality deteriorates, THEN put in a new cartridge. I've been thinking about a fill your own kit, as a few friends have used them.
This user is BELOW novice level and all their comments need to be reviewed with great caution.
I got fed up with jet printers. I don't use a printer often, and when I did I had to clean the print heads, wasting more ink. When my last cartridge ran dry, I bought a good Bro*** laser for less then $80 after rebates.
Novice User
I don't know which Canon printer they were using as a test model, but the Canon BJC-8200 that I have uses 6 *clear* ink tanks (black, cyan, magenta, yellow, photo cyan and photo magenta). When one of those is empty, I can look at it and see that it actually *is* empty when the printer is reporting that it is. Now, I've always used the Canon BCI-6E ink tanks and not another brand, such as Staples (where I usually buy my ink from), and I've had great luck with them. At about $11-$12 each, it's not bad, and I only have to replace the actual color that's run out. I do have two other printers: an old Panasonic KX-P1124 dot-matrix (which still runs like a champ after 19 years), and a HP LaserJet 6P (also still running like a champ after several years). Oh, btw: my technical expertise is pretty high...besides being a former U.S. Navy Electronics Technician, I've got my degrees in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering, and have been an I.T. professional for over 20 years (I just love going into Best Buy [somewhere else] and asking the "Geek Squad" people a truly arcane technical question and watch them go pale because they don't have a clue! :P ).
Novice User
I have always refilled my cartridges. I do so by removing the top to open the cartridge, then taping it closed again. At one stage, it was cheaper to buy a new printer than to replace both cartridges, (throw away a perfectly good printer to save a buck.) When my old lexmark died, I bought one of these new printers, only to find that the cartridge had a partition in it to allow it to only be half full.
These companies are ripping us off. use a laser printer
Novice User
Stop paying through the nose for ink, just go to your nearest Cartridge World. Enough said.
Hi gloe,
So good to hear from you these last few days. Your words are always so welcome :o)
The adventures in Spain were up there with Italy as far as museums’, architecture and general social observations go. If I may say I did not like the food selection. This being said we are very picky eaters, perhaps.
First stop in Madrid was the Royal Palace. Being some what jet lagged our energy was low, but being mid afternoon we felt the need to do something. For me the high lights were the Goya paintings, but there were amazing tapestries etc. The next day was the Prado twice for we were about a ½ hour walk away. Ah, what a great museum!!! Velazquez, Goya, H. Bosch and Rafael etc. It is a very lovely museum. Next stop Toledo the home of El Greco also a very old city. From there we flew to Barcelona. Sadly we encounter a rather lengthy time delay. Our hotel in Barcelona was in the suburb section near the Mediterranean. So we either walked along the beach or took the train to different places. The downtown Barcelona action is very busy with lots of stores etc.
Seems like a youthful place. The first museum was the Picasso and we able to do the start and finish. I mention that because many of these activities can not be finished per visit.
I enjoyed it very much and of course saw painting, sculptures and plates that I am not likely to see. A major focus may be his Las Meninas selections, but I enjoyed all of it. For two days after that we did the Gaudi search. For his architecture seem like they are all over Barcelona. We mainly focused on Sagrada Familia, Park Guell and Casa Batllo. IN the Sagrada Familia there is a very informative museum of his work. Prior to this trip I had very little introduction to him. He was a very creative human being with a love for nature as well.
Our next little adventure was a trip to Gerona and Figueres. Gerona is an old city as well. It has the remains of the walls built by the Romans, the early structures of Spanish cathedrals and the old winding streets. Figueres is the home of Dali. Also were he built his museum. It is much larger than I imagined. We could hardly finish it without rushing thru, which deeply sadden me, but we had to make the bus back to Barcelona. Of course one can not be greedy and must appreciate the blessings that one receives. Yes I admit this and other trips are indeed blessings. All though I have like Dali for many years and have learned that he might be considered a lesser master. I still consider him great. Also the jewelry section was amazing. In away I feel he mastered this area more so than his interest in movie making. But his movie making interests did bring him to some very deep visual science and imagery. In a Bio film which featured him I hear him consider himself more of an intellectual than a great painter. He praised Velazquez and etc. as the greats. Sorry for side tracking. In general I loved his museum and saw things I would never see. Last was the Museum d Historia de Catalunya a very large museum as well. One might need sometime or even days to explore like the Prado. Our visit there was a little brief but still a pleasant one. Perhaps the highlight was the Spanish impressionist section of which I had little to none exposure to ( except Picasso etc.). Oh ya actually the Roman section was really great. Ah what to say, it was all great.
In closing do not want to give the impression that I am not with deep respect for Velazquez etc. It is just that I am not the greatest writer and wanted to give a general description of the trip.
Ok that about it. I hope you have a nice flight home and we welcome you
Back :o).
If you at some point want to write a few words about your Denver trip I would like to read them.
sb
Air Supply - Making Love Out of Nothing at All
I know just how to whisper
And I know just how to cry
I know just where to find the answers
And I know just how to lie
I know just how to fake it
And I know just how to scheme
I know just when to face the truth
And then I know just when to dream
And I know just where to touch you
And I know just what to prove
I know when to pull you closer
And I know when to let you loose
And I know the night is fading
And I know the time's gonna fly
And I'm never gonna tell you
Everything I gotta tell you
But I know I gotta give it a try
And I know the roads to riches
And I know the ways to fame
I know all the rules
And then I know how to break 'em
And I always know the name of the game
But I don't know how to leave you
And I'll never let you fall
And I don't know how you do it
Making love out of nothing at all
Out of nothing at all, out of nothing at all
Out of nothing at all, out of nothing at all
Out of nothing at all,
Making love out of nothing at all
Everytime I see you all the rays of the sun
Are streaming through the waves in your hair
And every star in the sky is taking aim at your eyes
Like a spotlight
The beating of my heart is a drum and it's lost
And it's looking for a rhythm like you
You can take the darkness from the pit of the night
And turn into a beacon burning endlessly bright
I've gotta follow it 'cause everything I know
Well it's nothing till I give it to you
I can make the runner stumble
I can make the final block
I can make every tackle at the sound of the whistle
I can make all the stadiums rock
I can make tonight forever
Or I can make it disappear by the dawn
I can make you every promise that has ever been made
I can make all your demons be gone
But I'm never gonna make it without you
Do you really want to see me crawl
And I'm never gonna make it like you do
Making love out of nothing at all
Out of nothing at all, out of nothing at all
Out of nothing at all, out of nothing at all
Out of nothing at all, out of nothing at all
Out of nothing at all
"Could It Be Magic"
Barry Manilow
Spirit move me
every time I"m near you
Whirling like a cyclone in my mind
Sweet Melissa,
angel of my life time,
Answer to all answers I can find
Baby I love you Come, come,
come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you
Baby I want you,
now, now, now and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last
Lady take me
high upon a hillside
High up where the stallion meets the sun
I could love you,
build my world around you,
Never leave you till my life is done
Baby I love you Come, come,
come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you
and baby I want you,
now, now, oh now, oh now and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last
now could it be magic
Come, come on,come on
come oh come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you
Baby I want you,
now, now, oh now,oh now and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last.
Could it be magic
come, come on,come on,come,oh come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you
Baby I want you,
now, now, oh now,oh now and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last.
Could it be magic
come, come on,come on,come,oh come into my arms
Let me know the wonder of all of you
Baby I want you,
now, now, oh now,now oh now and hold on fast
Could this be the magic at last.
gloe must be in love :)
Favorite poetry by Robert Frost
(1) Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
(2) Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Use the Power of the Mind to Improve Your Health and Well Being
Friday, April 18, 2008 by: Rich Stacel (see all articles by this author)
http://www.naturalnews.com/023048.html
(NaturalNews) In western medical circles, we're hearing more and more about something that eastern cultures have known for decades, that the mind plays a huge role in your health, immunity and well being. While this has been common sense to the rest of us for decades really, it seems that western medicine can’t believe or accept anything without a hundred studies and trials to back up what all the rest of us know from common sense, simple logic and empirical observation.
I, for one, never did and still do not regard most of these studies as much of anything, mostly because there is a study out there to just about prove or disprove virtually anything that you want to believe. Of course this is very foolish and dangerous as most studies, especially those that seem to prove or invalidate the effectiveness of natural cures including herbs, breathing, meditation, chi-gung and other natural and cheap health techniques are actually funded by the drug companies and many front groups. Some of these groups are even using very convincing names with keywords in their titles such as “organic, natural” or other names to make them appear as if they actually believe in natural cures, but subtly and deceptively lead you to doubt that a natural cure is not as effective as it was first thought. They tend to do this by degrees, slowly leading the consumer to believe that this natural method or cure is not all it’s cracked up to be.
St. Johns Wort is a great example of this. At first it was highly touted and people bought it in droves in the early 90’s. Once the pharmaceutical companies saw its sales were starting to decline, various studies came out that showed that it was “not that effective” or that it had no effect at all. Of course, those same studies showed that none of the anti-depressants, including the chemical versions that it was up against in the studies did anything either, but that part was conveniently left out giving the illusion that this ancient and highly touted and effective herb was virtually useless. Quite the opposite is true of course. While an herb that works great for one may not work that well for another, the effectiveness of the herbs themselves are not changed by this. Each person is different and an herb may work great for you and have no effect on someone else.
The mind is the most powerful tool that we have for health and healing. Of course, it can and too often is also the most powerful limiter of the same health and healing we have as well. Even the west has finally come to realize that most diseases are either caused or exacerbated by stress and the mind. Researchers have found stress is the main factor of all major illnesses including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, skin infections, back problems and more.
Since most stress is caused by the mind due to excessive thought and worry, it's in the mind where our greatest power lies to not only eliminate or greatly reduce stress, but also to use the power of our minds and relaxation to greatly enhance our energy (Chi) flow, boost our immunity, increase our resistance to many diseases and to greatly help us achieve longevity.
Meditation: Key to health and Longevity
Meditation is probably one of the most effective natural techniques that anyone can do to quickly and effectively increase their health and immunity and help themselves feel so much better, especially on an emotional level. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most confusing things to most people and one that most find is very difficult to begin to do. This is something that I can well understand and it’s one of the main reasons that I teach basic meditation in my Chinese health and fitness video.
When most people think of the idea that they have to learn to calm down their minds or gain control over it, there is a bit of fear and a big collective sigh at that thought or trying to do this. Why is the mind so hard to control and calm down? Mostly because thoughts occur on many levels and in fact the more you try to stop thought, the more the mind tends to fight and throws even more thoughts in your path. Chinese call this “Learning to tame the ape”. The mind is like an ape that wants to run wild and it must be taught to stay in its place. This can take quite a long time to really master, but it comes in stages and once you do, the benefits are tremendously worth it. Many people find this very frustrating and soon give up and simply and wrongly conclude that “meditation is just not for me”. Well that’s not true at all. Anyone can learn to meditate and gain the great health and emotional benefits of this incredibly effective and time honored technique.
Learning to calm down the mind and gain control over it is vital in internal cultivation and martial arts. That’s because if the mind is constantly thinking for no real reason, energy is being dispersed and just like an idling car engine, you’re wasting your fuel and going no where, generating a lot of heat that is just being vented out into the atmosphere and the universe and getting nothing back. Just like with an idling car engine, once that fuel is converted into heat, it dissipates into the air and can never again be recovered, at least not in that same form and not with existing technologies.
When the mind is calm, energy does not scatter; when energy does not scatter, it stays at its residence or source, meaning it will stay within the body to be used and not wasted by being dispersed into the atmosphere or turned into useless heat (stress) in the body. Meditation helps us to sustain energy by calming down out thoughts so that we're not wasting energy, like the idling car, with the constant and mostly useless chatter that we get from the subconscious mind. It’s this type of constant thought that leads to unnecessary and detrimental stress. The more our mind is racing, it invents and creates things to worry about. Too much thought leads to excessive fear, excessive and unrealistic fears weaken the kidneys which are a vital organ for health and longevity, not to mention immunity too. When the kidneys are weak, their subjective control over the heart is weakened which then causes heart palpitations and eventually leads to heart disease and more. This is but one example of how the mind and unnecessary emotions throw our organs and organ chi all out of balance and if not corrected, over time can and does lead to organ degradation and more serious health issues down the road.
How to Begin Meditation
So how do we begin to learn to calm down the mind? The first step is to gain control over the mind itself. There are many techniques that have been discovered and developed for this over the millennia. This is especially true in Chinese chi-gung and martial arts. You can begin by simply paying attention to your breathing. The mind and energy follows our breathing. When we're angry, our exhalations are longer than our inhalations. When we're sad, our inhalations are longer than our exhalations. This is because anger builds up fire chi, so the body increases our exhalations automatically to purge the body of the excess fire, kind of like when a dog pants on a hot summer’s day. When we're sad, our energy is suppressed and weakened so the body increases our inhalations in an attempt to absorb more chi and again keep the chi in balance. When calm and neutral of thought, then our inhalations and exhalations are equal in length.
In paying attention to your breathing, simply start by being aware of each breath and start to slow down your breathing. Try this for at least five minutes as this is also an excellent warm up to use before beginning any meditation session as well. As you breathe in and out, use your conscious will and mind to begin to command your mind to calm down. Do this gently, otherwise the mind will only become more tense, the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish. An old axiom in Chi-gung is “The mind controls the chi, the chi controls the body”. As we begin to calm down our minds, our chi will also become calmer, more balanced in regards to yin (water) and Yang (fire) and our organs will also be stronger. When this happens, their function and strength is automatically enhanced and increased, sometimes significantly so and this is how having a calm mind can and does greatly improve and affect our health.
After your mind is calm, a simple method of meditation that I prefer people start off with is to practice simple concentration exercises. This is because if you can’t concentrate, you will not have any control over your mind or you chi in the body and will not be able to will the mind to calm down effectively. The concentration exercises themselves are a type of meditation so you kill two birds with one proverbial stone this way. One of the simplest and most effective methods is to simply practice by staring at a lit candle for about five minutes at a time without being distracted by stray thoughts or losing your concentration. You’ll find that you can do this for many 10-20 seconds at a time and all of a sudden you’ll start thinking about tomorrow, yesterday, what to make for dinner, the show you saw last night and more. Then you realize 'oops... what happened...' exactly. This is quite hard to do.
In Chinese Gung-fu, the minimum requirement was thirty minutes without being distracted by stray thoughts while staring at the candle. This eventually takes great concentration and strength of will, but it’s easier for the beginner to practice this type of thought control than to totally blank out the mind which is a much higher level. Once you’re able to concentrate for about five minutes this way, then focusing your mind internally on quieting your mind will be more successful since your mind will now be stronger overall.
You can also practice trying to mentally bend the flame in different directions, sometimes towards you, away from you, to the left or right while staring at it. It will not really move by your mind though, even though normal air currents will make it move on its own. But the conscious act trying to will it to move further gives the mind something to concentrate on and it also increases your strength of will. Since the kidneys control the will and are the seat of the will, this actually is a simple and effective way to increase the strength of the kidneys as well as the mind at the same time.
After you have achieved the five minutes of concentration requirements, you’ll find already that your mind is calmer, more focused and perhaps that you even have more energy overall. Of course this is something that you need to practice with every day. Depending on how serious you are about it and your commitment to it, you will find this goal can be achieved in a relatively short time, from a few weeks to perhaps a few months. Like anything, it takes commitment and a never give up attitude. In the west where everyone is looking for a quick fix, this may sound like a long time but it’s really not. At first the desire to quit is strong, but just stick with it and do it seriously and believe in the training and the goal and this belief itself will greatly help you to achieve this or any goal much faster than if your mind is filled with doubt about it.
In a later article I will be teaching some more specific internal meditations which will focus on some energy centers of the body itself. These are places where chi is stored in the body and this will further increase the amount and strength of your chi, including the mind/body connection even further. The greater this connection and the calmness of mind we have, the greater is our health, immunity and overall sense of well being, not to mention greater emotional health and elevated mood on a more consistent basis. When we feel better about ourselves, all of the little things in life that I see many people getting so flustered over really become almost nothing. For that is the way to overcome any obstacle. If you shrink the size of a problem down in your mind to nothing and believe that it truly is nothing, then you can convince yourself that you can overcome it. This is a simple way to increase your faith in yourself, your own skills and your ability to solve a problem.
We can change our automatically negative responses into positive ones through repeated positive thinking, telling yourself that you can overcome it and saying “this is nothing”. Its just like learning to lift a heavy weight. You didn’t start out with a heavy weight, but a lighter weight. Over time and practice as you get stronger, you eventually found that you could lift that heavier weight. The mind works in a very similar way. The more you work it, the stronger it will become. Just as it takes time and practice to lift a heavier weight, so too does it take time and practice to overcome the heavier (larger) problems on the mind. We can all have a tendency to make a problem larger than it really is. While we can all do this at times, we don’t want to make problems larger, but smaller. We want to use our minds to see the truth that a problem is only as large as we make it in our minds and only as large as the belief in our ability to overcome it.
A great example is from the Star Wars movie “The Empire Strikes Back”. In there, Luke’s ship sank in the swamp and small little Yoda, his Jedi Master, knew that it was possible to lift the ship out through faith in the force. Luke, who had just a minute ago been lifting some rocks while standing on one hand stated “...moving stones around is one thing but this is totally different!”. Yoda exclaimed “No, no different!, only different in your mind.” Luke tried and started to lift his ship, but doubted midway and the ship sank. Yoda came to his rescue and used the force and deep concentration to lift this seemingly insurmountable obstacle (a mountain of a problem) out of the water and onto dry land. Luke walked over to him in absolute shock and said, “I don’t believe it!” Yoda replied “That, is why you fail”.
While this exact account is fictional, it was really taken from a section in the Bible where Jesus was walking on the water in the middle of the night. His disciples saw him and were stunned in absolute shock, thinking it must be a ghost. Peter asked Jesus that "if it is you, let me come onto the water with you." Jesus replied, “Come”. Peter stepped out of the boat and onto the water and did in fact walk on the water for a short time, until he saw and thought about what he was doing, saw the waves and the wind and allowed fear to enter his mind. Immediately he began to sink and cried out to Jesus to save him, which He did. When they got into the boat, Jesus said to Peter, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” I hope that you can in fact see the similarities between these two accounts.
It’s interesting to note that as Peter became afraid, this led to doubt. Remember that I mentioned above, that fear is controlled by the kidneys and they also control the strength of will. So it's interesting to note the sequence of events with Peter, that as he first looked he became afraid. Once fear set in his kidneys, chi was weakened which sapped his strength of will. Once his will was weakened, his concentration and focus went. This caused his faith to falter and the instant that happened, he began to sink.
While none of us will ever be able to walk on water as Peter did, at least not in this life, the patterns of fear leading to loss of will and the subsequent loss of faith are well known in Chinese chi-gung. This can and does have a real cause and effect in our personal lives, just as it surely had a very real effect in Peter's life that day. His loss of faith almost literally meant the loss of his life. Fortunately, Jesus was there to save him. For us, we can use this lesson as well as the techniques of Chinese martial arts and chi-gung to strengthen our own minds, control our fear, increase our willpower and thereby our faith so that we will be able to walk above all of our problems that we face in life and never sink below them ever again.
If you would like to learn about the mind, meditation, chi-gung, breathing, nutrition and more, please visit the website for my up and coming video “Chinese health and fitness” at the link below.
About the author
Rich Stacel is a natural health, Qigong and Chinese martial arts practitioner for over twenty four years. Having read scores of books on Chinese medicine, health, nutrition, supplements, meditation, martial arts, healing, science, astronomy, physics, Einstien, general health and more. Rich has helped numerous people achieve their health and fitness goals over the years. Rich is also interested in health freedom including spreading truth on health, fitness, spiritual truths and more. You can learn more about breathing, meditation, what foods to eat, avoid, food additives, chi-gung as well as get more info about his upcoming Chinese health video at www.chinesehealthandfitness.com
Pill-Popping Pets
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13pets-t.html?ei=5070&en=676c362af3343fc6&ex=1216526400&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all
By JAMES VLAHOS
Published: July 13, 2008
Corrections Appended
Max retrieves Frisbees. He gobbles jelly beans. He chases deer. He is — and this should be remembered when discussions of cases like his blunder into the thickets of cognitive ethology, normative psychology and intraspecies solipsism — a good dog. A 3-year-old German shepherd, all rangy limbs and skittering paws, he patrols the hardwood floors and wall-to-wall carpets of a cul-de-sac home in Lafayette, Calif., living with Michelle Spring, a nurse, and her husband, Allan, a retired airline pilot. Max fields tennis balls with his dexterous forelegs and can stand on his hindquarters to open the front door. He loves car rides and will leap inside any available auto, even ones belonging to strangers. Housebroken, he did slip up once indoors, but everybody knows that the Turducken Incident simply wasn’t his fault. “He’s agile,” Allan says. “He’s healthy. He’s a good-looking animal.” Michelle adds, “We love him to death.” That is why they had no choice, she says. The dog simply had to go on psychoactive drugs.
I arrived the night Max was to receive his first pill. He picked at the food in his chow bowl while the Springs sat at the kitchen table discussing his problems. For starters, there was his overpowering need to be near people, especially Allan. If they put Max outside, he quickly relieved himself and then rushed back indoors; he raced into rooms that Allan was about to occupy; he rested his head against the bathroom door during his master’s ablutions. “Watch this,” Allan said. He and Michelle stood up to hug. The moment they touched, Max unleashed a string of high-pitched barks. “He likes being close to us, but he doesn’t like us being close to each other,” Allan said.
These behaviors, however, weren’t what prompted the psychiatric intervention. The Springs led me downstairs to the family room — Max, supper unfinished, bounded ahead. Downstairs, Allan pointed to Max, who was lying on the floor and staring at his tail. He looked angry at it, disturbed by it. “You can see the pressure building in his psyche until he’s ready to explode,” Michelle said. And then he did: Max jumped to his feet and lunged. His jaws snapped, catching only air, and he spun counterclockwise in place, an accelerating blur of fur and teeth and frustration. Tail-chasing is normal — except that Max did it daily, often for hours on end. “He’s like a junkie needing a fix,” Allan said. “At times he can’t not do it. He goes berserk.”
Allan went upstairs and returned moments later with a bit of ground turkey and a pill. He hid the pill in the meat and extended his hand to Max, who had stopped spinning. The medicine was chemically identical to clomipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant used in human psychiatric care, but it came in a green-and-white Novartis box brightened by the picture of a happy yellow lab. This wasn’t Anafranil, the brand name for the human version of the drug; it was Clomicalm, just for dogs. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating separation anxiety, a problem that can occur when dogs are left home alone, the medication is also commonly prescribed off-label for patients with Max’s diagnosis: compulsive disorder. He was the canine version of a person who washes his hands 20 times an hour. Max leaned forward and gulped the pill down.
The practice of prescribing medications designed for humans to animals has grown substantially over the past decade and a half, and pharmaceutical companies have recently begun experimenting with a more direct strategy: marketing behavior-modification and “lifestyle” drugs specifically for pets. America’s animals, it seems, have very American health problems. More than 20 percent of our dogs are overweight; Pfizer’s Slentrol was approved by the F.D.A. last year as the country’s first canine anti-obesity medication. Dogs live 13 years on average, considerably longer than they did in the past; Pfizer’s Anipryl treats cognitive dysfunction so that absent-minded pets can remember the location of the supper bowl or doggy door. For lonely dogs with separation anxiety, Eli Lilly brought to market its own drug Reconcile last year. The only difference between it and Prozac is that Reconcile is chewable and tastes like beef.
Doggy diet pills may be plainly absurd, but scientists in an expanding field known as behavioral pharmacology say that the combination of new drug therapies and progressive training techniques can solve problems that in the past almost always resulted in euthanasia. The supposed effectiveness of psychiatric medicines in treating mood and behavior issues is prompting new questions in the centuries-old debate over what, exactly, separates mankind from the beasts. If the strict Cartesian view were true — that animals are essentially flesh-and-blood automatons, lacking anything resembling human emotion, memory and consciousness — then why do animals develop mental illnesses that eerily resemble human ones and that respond to the same medications? What can behavioral pharmacology teach us about animal minds and, ultimately, our own?
ON SEPT. 5, 1379, A TRIO OF French pigs, agitated by the squealing of a piglet, bowled over their keeper’s son, who died shortly thereafter of the injuries. As E. P. Evans recounts in his 1906 monograph, “The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals,” “the three sows, after due process of law, were condemned to death” along with several other pigs who had “hastened to the scene of the murder and by their cries and aggressive actions showed that they approved of the assault.” (The accomplices were later pardoned.) Fast-forward to December 2007 to witness a curious animal proceeding of the modern era: Mitzi-Bitzi, a lap dog, modeling a $118,000 diamond bracelet at the opening of Chateau Poochie, a pet hotel and spa near Miami. “She’s just so special,” her owner, Marilyn Belkin, told me later, as if that explained things. The sows and Mitzi got opposite treatment, but the beliefs of Belkin and the pig prosecutors weren’t so different. In medieval times and in the present, we often act as if animals had thoughts, feelings and desires that resemble those of people. How else could you justify the porcine death penalty; why splurge on a blueberry facial when a simple roll on the lawn would do?
Marketers have a new name for the age-old tendency to view animals as furry versions of ourselves: “humanization,” a trend that is fueling the explosive growth of the pet industry and the rise of modern pet pharma. Americans forked over $49 billion for pet products and services last year, up $11.5 billion from 2003; other than consumer electronics, pet products are the fastest-growing retail segment. The market expansion is being driven both by more pets and by more spending per pet, especially by affluent baby boomers whose children have graduated from college. A third of the total spending, and the fastest-growing category, is health care, with treatments formerly reserved for people — root canals, chemotherapy, liposuction, mood pills — being administered to pets. “I get asked all the time, ‘What is it with this humanization — do we suddenly love our pets a whole lot more?’ ” says David Lummis, who analyzes the pet industry for the market research firm Packaged Facts. “My theory is that it’s always been there, but it’s been sanctioned now. It’s not just the crazy cat lady. It’s marketers and all of this consumer advertising that have made it O.K. to spend tons of money on your pet.”
Humanization has pharmaceutical companies salivating like Pavlov’s dogs. Surveys by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association found that 77 percent of dog owners and 52 percent of cat owners gave their animals some sort of medication in 2006, both up at least 25 percentage points from 2004. Sales of drugs for pets recently surpassed those for farm animals. Eli Lilly created its “companion animal” division at the beginning of 2007 and over the next three years hopes to release several other drugs. Pfizer, whose companion animal revenues have grown 57 percent since 2003 to nearly $1 billion, hopes to develop medications for pain, cancer and behavioral issues. Most consumer spending is still on traditional pet medications like antiparasitics, but Ipsos, a marketing research firm, estimates that at least $15 million was spent on behavior-modification drugs in the United States in 2005. “As people are seeing more complex and sophisticated drugs for themselves, they want that same quality for their pets,” Dr. Melanie Berson, a veterinarian at the F.D.A.’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, has said. People’s willingness to employ behavior-modifying medications stems in part from a growing desire for more convenient, obedient household animals. “Our expectations are really going up,” Lummis says. “Owners want their pets to be more like little well-behaved children.”
Potent as a marketing trend, humanization has long been scorned as scientific practice by researchers working in the behaviorist tradition of B. F. Skinner. In “Inside the Animal Mind,” George Page summarizes the reasons: “Since we cannot get inside the animal’s mind . . . and since the animal cannot report what’s going on — not in a ‘language’ we can readily understand — all we have left are guesses and speculation fatally tainted by anthropomorphism.” Strict behaviorists focus instead on observable stimulus-response conditioning: for example, a puppy learning to sit to receive a treat. Actions that cannot be explained this way are usually attributed to blind instinct. As such, hard-core Skinnerian philosophy amounts to a perversion of cogito ergo sum: I can’t prove that animals think, therefore they don’t. In dealing with problem pets, veterinarians with a behaviorist bent don’t concern themselves so much with what might be happening inside the brain of the animal or try to correct neurochemical imbalances with drugs. Instead, a compulsive or anxious animal is seen as one that just needs to be better-trained.
The debate about animal minds is at least as old as Aristotle, who posited that men alone possess reason. The 17th-century French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche wrote that animals “desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing,” while Voltaire asked, “Answer me, mechanist, has Nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel?” Darwin’s view was, Of course not. In “The Descent of Man” he wrote, “We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties . . . of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.” The staggering assertion of Darwin’s theory is that evolutionary continuity applies not just to bodies but to brains. “The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind,” he wrote.
For much of the 20th century scientists willfully dismissed this line of thinking, which has been rekindled only in the past three decades with the rise of a field known as cognitive ethology. The guiding belief is that while it is scientifically baseless to assume that animals think and feel just as we do, it is equally foolhardy to assume that they don’t think and feel at all. In laboratory experiments and field observations, practitioners have presented evidence of analogical reasoning by apes, counting by rats and the capacity of pigeons to distinguish the paintings of Picasso from those of Monet. Researchers have demonstrated that animals can grasp basic abstractions like “same” and “different” and use mental flexibility to solve novel problems in the laboratory for which hard-wired instinct couldn’t have prepared them. It is impressive but perhaps unsurprising that a parrot was taught to categorize colors or that dolphins learned the syntactic distinction between “take the surfboard to the Frisbee” and “take the Frisbee to the surfboard” — we already tend to think of these animals as being smart. More eye-opening are glimmers of cognition from way down the phylogenetic chain. Research has shown that bumblebees can remember which flowers they have already visited and that two-inch-long cockroaches from Madagascar can tell the difference between a familiar person and a stranger. (If the bug hisses loudly at you, it’s time to introduce yourself.)
Cognitive ethologists have had more difficulty gathering evidence for animal emotion. To any pet owner who has stroked a purring cat or watched a dog cavort when his chow hits the bowl, it seems intuitively obvious that animals experience feelings. But intuition isn’t hard science — it’s just more humanization. Enter behavioral pharmacology, which has provided a tantalizing new window into the animal mind. Dr. Nicholas Dodman, who pioneered the field and founded the Tufts University Animal Behavior Clinic, says that skeptics of the premise that animals have emotional states used to ask him how he could say that a pacing, hyperventilating dog was actually feeling anxious. “Well, how about this?” Dodman would reply. “We’ll give him an antianxiety drug and see what happens.”
THE GROUNDS OF THE CUMMINGS School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts sprawl over 640 acres of rolling greenery in central Massachusetts. When I arrived to visit in March, one of the first things Dodman told me was that the campus used to be the site of a state mental hospital. Like other facilities, it had been shuttered in the 1960s following the revolutionary discovery of drugs that treated schizophrenia and other disorders so effectively that many patients no longer required institutionalization. “Ironically, this paved the way for our school, our behavior program, and novel pharmacological treatments for animal behavior problems,” Dodman said. Or, as he later said, “we traded one group of inmates for another.”
Dodman, an Englishman, began his career in the early 1970s as a roving country vet in the tradition of James Herriot; he went on to write a popular series of advice books for pet owners, the latest of which is “The Well-Adjusted Dog.” In 1981 he moved to the United States to become a professor of anesthesia at Cummings. Drugs interested him greatly but comatose patients, increasingly, did not, and he began to wonder: Could medications transform veterinary behavioral medicine just as radically as they had human psychiatric care? He says he quickly realized that the field was “completely wide open, like virgin snow.” At a veterinary conference in the late 1980s, he presented his vision of the psychoactive frontier and “saw jaws drop around the room. It was like, ‘Who is this strange masked man?’ ” Three decades later, “it’s almost mainstream for behaviorists to know something about pharmacology,” Dodman says.
Inside his small office, Dodman, wearing a tie-and-tasseled-loafer ensemble topped by a white lab coat, received the day’s first patient. A muzzled dog on a short lead towed Joe and Mahala Richards, from Mendon, Mass., into the room. “So here we have Zoey, who’s a yellow black-mouthed cur, 5 years old, and you got her at 7 months,” Dodman said. “I’m already picking up that she’s fearful and anxious, and that usually stems from a disturbed childhood.”
“We know she was abused,” Mahala said.
“There you go,” Dodman replied.
Joe said Zoey’s problem was that she sometimes attacked when food was around. The worst incident had happened a week ago when Mahala was watching television and reached for a piece of cheese. “She just came after me,” Mahala said. Joe added, “Zoey had her on the couch — she’s screaming at the top of her lungs— and Zoey just kept going at her hands.” Mahala held up a scarred wrist. “My God, that’s nasty,” Dodman said. He listened for 20 minutes and then issued a diagnosis: something called “conflict aggression,” which meant that occasionally Zoey forgot that she didn’t need to fight to get her share of food. Zoey was to be kept from hot dogs, peanut-butter bones and any other culinary provocations. High places like beds were forbidden (elevated positions can make dogs feel more confident), and exercise was essential. Outlining what he called the “nothing in life is free” program, Dodman said that Zoey should be made to sit before feeding and that affection was to be rationed. The overall goal was to get Zoey to respect the leadership of her owners, which would raise her inhibition to attack. These behavior modifications alone might be enough to cure Zoey, Dodman concluded.
“We don’t want to have to put her down,” Mahala replied quietly.
“No,” Dodman said. “A serious bite is a risk factor for euthanasia for the dog, which is why another component of the program might be some medicine. If we were to ask Zoey: ‘Look, if you slip up in the future, and you bite someone like that again, the chances are you’re not going to come out of it alive. But we can make you feel better if we give you some medicine like, for example, Prozac. Would you like to have the medicine that might save your life?’ And she might go, ‘Grrr-rrr rrrup — yeah, yeah, I’ll take the medicine.’ It’s a lifesaving thing.” Joe and Mahala left a half-hour later with a scrip in hand.
Aggression is the leading issue that brings animals into clinics; it and other behavior problems are the top reasons that pets are surrendered to shelters. Half of them are euthanized, roughly three to four million animals per year, and an equal number are believed to be put down in private practices. Treatment with psychoactive medications is then a very real alternative to lethal injection. Prozac, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (S.S.R.I.), prolongs the effects of that neurotransmitter to reduce impulsivity, stabilize moods and lower anxiety, Dodman says. He is friends with the noted Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, and they once compared the drugs they employ to treat violent people and animals. “You superimpose my portfolio on top of his, and it’s the same thing,” Dodman says. He has patented his S.S.R.I. approach and is working with a pharmaceutical company, Accura Animal Health, that plans to bring it to market as the first F.D.A.-approved treatment for canine aggression. (The current use of Prozac and similar drugs is prescribed off-label.)
Aggression is a feline problem too. A few weeks after visiting Dodman, I went to the home of a man in West Los Angeles whose pet was on Prozac. The owner, Doug, asked me not to use his last name because he didn’t want business associates to know about what he called his “cougar psycho little miniature stalker” — Booboo the cat.
The first incident took place four years ago after Booboo ate some decorative dried flowers. Booboo scaled his cat tree and sat there with his eyes “a little dilated and cross-eyed,” Doug said. He started “growling like a banshee,” released “a high, shrill wail” and lunged. “He ripped my leg up and wouldn’t let go.” Doug fled, and Booboo pursued. Finally he was able to trap the cat in a bedroom. From then on Booboo was different. He would periodically ambush Doug. Over time, Doug noticed that attacks were more likely if he smelled at all abnormal — for instance, if he had been near a woman wearing perfume — so he would take a shower after coming home and then change into his designated cat-wrangling outfit.
Doug consulted a behaviorist, Dr. Karen Sueda. One hypothesis was that Booboo suffered from a feline version of schizophrenia — there is evidence that animals experience auditory and visual hallucinations and can temporarily enter deluded states in which they attack. Sueda didn’t think that was likely with Booboo, nor did she think his attacks were motivated by fear, as is often the case with animal aggression. In Booboo she says she saw a dominant, confident cat who “wanted to control his personal territory.” One theory about such animals is that they suffer from a neurochemical imbalance. As Dodman explained in his book “The Cat Who Cried for Help,” “By engaging in and winning aggressive encounters, dominant animals drive up serotonin levels and gain in composure.” Sueda prescribed Prozac to boost the effects of the neurotransmitter.
Doug led me up the stairs in his house to the second floor. He donned a pair of khakis that he had lined with heavy-gauge ballistic nylon and washed up because he had shaken hands with me. He crept toward the master bedroom, where Booboo was permanently quarantined behind a door that had been remounted to swing outward to facilitate quick escapes by Doug. “Just behind this door lurks the Tasmanian devil,” Doug said before slipping inside. I squatted at ground level and watched through a transparent doggy door. The 400-square-foot room had a walk-in closet, a four-poster bed and a floor-to-ceiling view of Beverly Hills mansions dotting a scenic canyon. The suite belonged entirely to Booboo, though Doug said he was now able to sleep over a few nights a week. Booboo slinked past the window and gave me a steady gaze. He had a tuxedo coat, mostly black but with patches of white on his feet, underbelly and forehead. Doug scooped him up and they nuzzled face to face. “He’s just warm, soft and fuzzy, and he purrs, and he’s cuddly,” he murmured.
Separation anxiety, bane of modern home-alone dogs and target of Lilly’s new Reconcile, is a problem millennia in the making. Archaeologists and geneticists estimate that the domestication of wolves (Canis lupus) into dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) began at least 15,000 years ago. One hypothesis about how this happened is that as humans settled down and established villages, piles of discarded food scraps and plant matter accumulated on the outskirts. Wolves that were genetically predisposed to be slightly less fearful of humans would feed off the free bounty, while the more skittish animals would steer clear. “At this point, natural selection would take over,” Jake Page explains in “Dogs: A Natural History.” “As the dump-loving wolves reproduced with each other, their tameness would probably become more and more pronounced.” The gentler animals were increasingly favored and brought into our lives to the point that many dogs (42 percent, according to a survey by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association) now sleep in the same beds as their owners. Extreme attachment to people is one of the defining traits of dogs.
Extreme attachment, unfortunately, also causes some dogs extreme suffering when deprived of their owners’ company. Martha and Phil Bridges live in Sacramento with a 2-year-old lab mix named Rocco. The Bridges told me that when they left home and went to work each day from 8 a.m to 5 p.m., they would lock Rocco in a large cage in the dining room to keep the young dog from running amok. One day last fall they returned to find the dog loose with his nose bloodied from prying the cage door open. They locked him in it again. The next evening Rocco was still inside but had shredded his pillow bed and reared up so violently that the cage was destroyed. Next the Bridges used a baby gate to block off part of the house so that Rocco would have more room to roam. He stripped five feet of carpeting from the floor. They locked him in the bathroom. Shower curtain shredded, shampoo swallowed, door frame torn. Realizing they needed help, the Bridges took Rocco to see Dr. Rachel Malamed, a resident at the Behavior Service at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis. She diagnosed separation anxiety, outlined a retraining program and wrote a scrip. The happy outcome: Rocco “has never had another problem since we put him on Reconcile,” Martha says.
An estimated 14 percent or more of American dogs have separation anxiety. The problem signs include home and self-destruction; prolonged whining, barking or drooling; or simply standing by the front door all day in a lonely, panting vigil. (“Nannycam”-type video recorders have captured all of the above.) The terms for Reconcile’s F.D.A. approval were that the drug had to be prescribed with a course of behavior modification. In Rocco’s case, Malamed taught the Bridges to stage mock departures — jingling the car keys, opening the front door — while giving treats so that Rocco would associate their leaving with a yummy reward. When the Bridges left the house for real, they were to slip out with zero fuss; frantic barking and jumping were to be ignored. “We brought on this anxiety with him being so attached to us,” Martha says. “Now we have to break that bond — without breaking it to the point where he won’t know that we still love him.”
When it comes to retraining, however, some people are slackers. Dodman estimates that 25 percent of the pet owners he sees don’t take his advice. At U.C. Davis I observed one couple impatiently shrugging off Malamed’s directives. I was watching the appointment via closed-circuit television with another vet, Dr. Jeannine Berger, and she sighed in exasperation. “They just want the magic pill,” she said. “People always want the magic pill.” The studies of Reconcile show why behavioral pharmacologists prefer not to rely on the medicine bottle — or for that matter, retraining — alone. Dr. Steve Connell, a veterinarian at Eli Lilly, told me that “behavior modification by itself works. There’s not any question about that. But if you use behavior modification in conjunction with Reconcile, it works quicker and it works better.”
How do researchers know that? The patients, after all, can’t describe the subtleties of their moods to therapists. Efficacy studies instead rely upon people to record signs of animal distress, like barks per hour and household objects destroyed. The study Lilly submitted to the F.D.A. in support of Reconcile involved 242 dogs scattered around the United States and Canada; in the double-blind trial, neither the veterinarians nor the owners involved knew which dogs were receiving Reconcile and which ones got a placebo. All dogs received behavior retraining. The results were strong enough to demonstrate efficacy but hardly earthshaking: 72 percent of the dogs on Reconcile showed improvement after eight weeks of treatment, while 50 percent of those receiving the placebo did. The study also found that more than half of the dogs on the drug experienced short-term side effects, including lethargy, depression and loss of appetite.
One thought had haunted me as I listened to the Bridges’ story: If I were locked inside the bathroom all day, I’d swallow the shampoo, too. Although most animal-behavior problems are believed to have genetic roots, their expressions are typically triggered by the unnatural lives that people force their pets to lead. “A dog that lived on a farm and ran around chasing rabbits all day would be more prone to being stable than a dog living in an apartment in Manhattan,” Dodman says. Undomesticated canids, neither confined nor excessively attached to people, don’t suffer from separation anxiety. Some captive horses endlessly circle their stalls or corrals — a compulsive behavior similar to Max’s tail chasing — but such purposeless repetitions have never been observed in the wild.
Pharmacological treatments, furthermore, are sometimes more for the convenience of owners than they are for the health of pets. When the dog bites, when the cat pees — “a lot of the ‘behavior problems’ we see are actually normal behaviors for the animal,” Dodman says. Cats aren’t mentally ill if they attack a new feline in the household or claw furniture to mark their domain. Food guarding and aggression toward strangers boost a dog’s survival rate in the wild but don’t cut it in the living room. And both cats and dogs demarcate territory with urine. “If a dog goes to the bathroom on a bush outside, you don’t mind as long as it’s not your bush,” Dodman says. “But when he comes back to the house and lifts his leg on your chair, it’s like, ‘Is the dog mentally sick?’ ”
In many other situations, however, a medicated animal may be a better-off one — for his own sake and not just for his master’s peace of mind. Obsessive dogs like Max sometimes injure themselves by spinning right into furniture or chewing their legs or tails until they’re bloody. You could also argue that Max would be happier not spinning and chasing squirrels instead — an anthropomorphic judgment, perhaps, but one that is hard to dispute after seeing the panting, possessed animal on the whirl. Medicating dogs like Rocco, meanwhile, makes some people queasy because separation anxiety is so clearly related to the absentee lifestyles of owners. Dr. Jean Donaldson, director of the San Francisco S.P.C.A. Academy for Dog Trainers, told me that she has always insisted that people who don’t have enough free time shouldn’t own dogs. But she recognizes that many ill-equipped people will do so anyway and supports employing drugs. In her view, our complicity in the problem’s creation doesn’t absolve us of responsibility for finding solutions, even ones with mild side effects.` “Can you imagine having separation anxiety?” she asked. “We’re talking ‘Silence of the Lambs’ here, being in the pit so that you rip off your own fingernails and break your teeth because of the degree of panic attacks you’re having. Do we really think that the problem here is a dry mouth from Reconcile?”
NOT EVERYBODY AGREES that America’s pets are facing a major mental-health crisis — or that whatever their problems, that drugs are necessarily part of the solution. One of the most passionate voices in the just-say-no camp belongs to Dr. Ian Dunbar, a veterinarian who has his doctorate in animal behavior and is the founder of a highly regarded instructional empire called Sirius Dog Training. “I have never in my life had to resort to using drugs to resolve a behavior problem,” he says. The rush to the medicine bottle for easily resolved problems like canine obesity — “Just feed the dog less!” — shows a disturbing parallel to the human approach to health care, he says. “We lead an unhealthy lifestyle and then rely on drugs to correct it.”
Dunbar lives down a winding lane high in the Berkeley Hills. When I arrived to visit, he led me into the living room, where we were joined by his three bounding dogs, Claude, Hugo and Dune. Claude had been a troubled S.P.C.A. shelter dog. He bit, was often anxious and had a problem known as pica, meaning he compulsively devoured nonfood items. When Dunbar rescued him a few years ago, Claude was recovering from an operation to remove a basketball from his intestines. “He would have been the ideal candidate for a drug treatment, but to me that was unnecessary if you know some of the simplest things about dog training,” Dunbar said.
Pharmacological aids are helpful in extreme circumstances, Dunbar acknowledged, but for the vast majority of cases, behavior modification alone does the trick. For problem dogs like Claude, he employs the simple, unswerving strategy of a trainer: Ignore unwanted behaviors and reward desired ones. The magic pill in Dunbar’s arsenal is a rubber chew toy stuffed with food. As I took a seat on the couch, he tossed three of them on the floor. The dogs ignored me completely — there was none of the usual canine pouncing on the visitor — and set to work. Absorbed, they gnawed and shook the toys, which slowly released kibble. It would take 45 minutes before the supply was exhausted. Claude, his attention refocused with the help of chew toys, no longer bit people or gobbled indigestibles. He was calm and the best-behaved of the household’s three canines. “The dog is creating endorphins of his own, his own natural drug therapy, while enjoying a totally acceptable activity,” Dunbar said.
To critics like Dunbar, separation anxiety is the attention-deficit disorder of the pet world, a problem that is overzealously pathologized, carelessly diagnosed and liberally medicated. His critique is unabashedly Skinnerian: “We’re confusing behavior problems, which are observable and quantifiable, with terms like ‘anxiety,’ which describe the dog’s internal mental state, for which we have absolutely zero proof,” he says. On a personal level, Dunbar suspects that animals do have thoughts and feelings and can become genuinely anxious when their owners are gone. But he is careful to not let assumptions cloud his professional judgment, because not every situation that looks like separation anxiety is in fact that condition. Lilly’s Web site for Reconcile states that “separation anxiety is a clinical condition in your dog’s brain.” Dunbar offers possible alternate explanations: Some dogs that are physically punished have inadvertently learned that they can get away with whatever they want when the humans are gone. Others are just bored and having fun. “What do we expect dogs to do when we go to work — watch the telly, do the crosswords or read the paper?” he asks. Hiding stuffed chew toys around the house is a good way to keep dogs occupied. “In the wild, the dog’s major activity is looking for food,” he says. “What most owners do is they feed the dog in the bowl, and within two minutes you’ve stolen his raison d’être. So now the dog is looking for activity, which we label ‘trouble’ and diagnose as all sorts of things like compulsion and separation anxiety.”
Dunbar is working with a pet-products manufacturer on an electronic dog-sitter that combines the reward elements of a classic Skinner box with the unblinking surveillance of Bentham’s Panopticon. Employing a network of sensors, the device monitors when the dog barks, how many steps it takes during the day, how long it lies down in its bed and when it plays with chew toys. Acting as a sort of robo-Dunbar, the gizmo automatically dispenses small treats when the animal is calm and well behaved. “Rather than the very general deadening of an anxiolytic or tranquilizing drug, what I want is a very specific education effect to teach the dog how he should act,” Dunbar says.
Modern owners are increasingly trying to “sterilize” pet ownership, he adds, trying to pharmacologically control dogs so that they don’t act like dogs. “What people want is a pet that is on par with a TiVo, that its activity, play and affection are on demand,” he says “Then, when they’re done, they want to turn it off.”
Back in the living room, we watched Claude and his housemates work at the chew toys. “Training is basically about forming a relationship, but for some people, that interactive process is now giving the dog a pill.”
TWO YEARS AGO, on the Fourth of July, a dog named Dixie was sitting in the backyard of her owners, Pat and Jen Morphy of Martinez, Calif. Around dusk, the sky above her exploded with the flashes and percussive booms of fireworks. Perhaps kids detonated firecrackers on the street nearby as well. Whatever happened, Dixie hasn’t been the same since.
Earlier this year the Morphys brought Dixie to see Rachel Malamed at the U.C. Davis Behavior Service. The Morphys reported that they take Dixie for a walk every day after work and then put her in the backyard. As soon as the sun sets, Dixie bolts for the house and cannot be dragged from it for the rest of the evening. She paces, stares and scans the air overhead. “You can just tell she’s waiting for something to happen,” Pat said. Dixie is eager for bedtime and scootches under the couple’s bed to sleep. But in the middle of the night, Dixie often jumps up on the bed and walks on Jen’s head. When she turns the lights on, the dog looks terrible, shivering and blank-eyed. It takes anywhere from 15 minutes to four hours to calm her enough to go back to sleep. “I can’t live with this dog any more how she is,” Jen said.
Malamed put a sound-effects CD into a boom box and set the volume to low. Dixie sat serenely through a trumpet fanfare, a toilet flush, a metal saw, ringing bells and raspy hinges. But at the sound of fireworks, during the long whistle and well before the climactic pop, Dixie tensed up; she tried to climb into Jen’s lap and began trembling. Malamed hit stop. “I’m sorry I had to do that,” she said. Noise phobias, especially those related to thunderstorms, are fairly common in dogs, and Malamed determined that Dixie had a phobia to fireworks.
So how did Dixie’s curious phobia develop? A Skinnerian would explain her problems within the bounds of stimulus-response conditioning, unthinking and automatic. On that first Fourth of July, Dixie correctly learned that fireworks are painfully loud but mistakenly linked the traumatic event with nightfall. Now every dark sky scares her. Her odd after-hours activity was very likely strengthened by more conditioned learning: every time she jumps on the bed in the middle of the night, Pat or Jen give her attention. Believing that they are soothing Dixie, they are actually rewarding and enforcing her troubled behavior.
But is her problem more complex than that? Most scientists now accept that animals experience basic emotions like pleasure, excitement and fear. These primal feelings provide useful motivation: to mate, kill prey or avoid danger. But whether emotional states like anxiety, obsession and depression exist is more controversial. The difference between fear and anxiety, after all, is the difference between a gazelle spooking at the sight of a lion and a gazelle worrying that a lion might appear. If you believe that the latter is possible, consider that Dixie might have some memory, however dim, of the original fireworks and that when she sees the sun setting, she becomes tense at the thought that they might percuss her eardrums again. In other words, her cognition goes beyond in-the-moment processing of sensory information; to paraphrase Eric Saidel, a professor of philosophy at George Washington University, she is not responding to the world but instead to the way she pictures the world. She thinks and, critically, is aware of her own thoughts.
By most any definition, this amounts to consciousness, the trait that people have traditionally been most loath to credit to animals. Many thinkers are hesitant to make definitive statements about any aspect of an animal’s internal life, much less to conclude that they are self-aware. In an influential essay published in 1974, the philosopher Thomas Nagel posed the question “What is it like to be a bat?” What is it like, really, to wheel blindly through the night sky hunting insects and navigating by echolocation? The sum of a being’s unique sensory and cognitive worlds constitute its Umwelt, and Nagel concluded that it was impossible to know any Umwelt but that of our own species. The words we use to describe animal mental states are hazy approximations at best. Hank Davis, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Guelph in Canada who has studied cognition in rats, rabbits and the aforementioned hissing cockroaches, told me that “I am as big an animal lover as anybody I’ve ever met. I can go on and on about how sweet and smart and emotional my pet rat is. But we have to be careful about saying that when my rat appears anxious or obsessive that she is experiencing the identical set of neurological conditions that a human would.” Prescribing drugs under those circumstances, he says, is “questionable ‘Twilight Zone’-type medicine.”
The skeptics are correct that there’s no smoking gun proving that human feelings and Dixie’s are similar, but on the flip side, there is a preponderance of circumstantial evidence. The limbic system, critical for human emotional responses, is structurally similar in all mammals. “People have a physiological response to the thing they fear,” says Steven Hamilton, a psychiatric geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco. “They get tremulous. Their heart rate goes up. They perspire. Their respiration will go up. Dogs do the exact same thing.” The clinical presentation of the problem is similar, too. Confronted by what they fear, phobic people and dogs try to get as far away as they can from the dreaded stimulus, be it spiders or fireworks. In both populations, susceptibility appears to be heritable. And finally, “humans respond to particular anxiolytic and antidepressant medications, and we find similar responses in dogs to the same drugs,” Hamilton says.
Dodman made the same points to me and concluded, somewhat exasperatedly, “If it looks, waddles and quacks like a duck, then maybe it is a duck.” He bristled at the charge that behavioral pharmacologists practice “Twilight Zone” medicine. The primary source of outrage for most critics is the thought of veterinary kooks dosing helpless animals with human drugs. But that misstates the matter. Long before Prozac, Paxil and the like were taken by people, they were tested for safety and efficacy in legions of laboratory creatures. You can plausibly argue — and Dodman and others do — that humans are in fact using animal drugs.
At the U.C. Davis clinic, Malamed told the Morphys that “we need to change Dixie’s emotional response to the noise.” She prescribed Clomicalm, to ease Dixie’s anxiety and make her more receptive to training, and Xanax, which in the short term would dull her panic attacks and help her sleep. She recommended that they play the recorded sound of fireworks very quietly while rewarding the animal for being calm. A few weeks later, Jen reported that Dixie was sleeping through the night.
THREE WEEKS AFTER MAX started Clomicalm, Allan and I took him for a walk along a creek. He sniffed the grass on the banks; he barked at a passing dog. We got back to the house, and as we took turns tossing the Frisbee to Max on a lawn out front, I asked how things were going with the tail chasing. “He still does it,” Allan said. “But it’s not as bad as it was.” According to the vet, the drug needed another couple of weeks before it would be fully effective on Max’s neurochemistry, so Allan was withholding judgment until then. A couple of months later, Allan told me that he thought Max was only spinning half as much as he had.
Dodman says that the serotonin-affecting drugs like Clomicalm have the effect of “oil on troubled waters” — they may calm the animal but don’t attack the underlying problem. To learn more about why dogs chase their tails, and in hopes of developing more precise drug treatments, Dodman and other researchers at other universities are hunting for the genetic underpinnings of the disorder.
Dogs are a geneticist’s dream. Lab rats can be artificially induced to suffer certain problems — for example, electrically shocked to create a fearful state — whereas dogs are natural models, exhibiting anxiety, phobias and compulsions on their own. The canine genome, whose sequencing was recently completed, is considerably easier to analyze than the human one. The canine gene pool has been highly restricted and segregated during the creation of distinct dog breeds, much of which happened within the past 200 years. Members within a breed are highly similar genetically, making mutations that might cause behavior problems easier to spot. Purebred dogs are also excellent for testing theories about heritability. “There are fantastic genealogical resources that can connect dogs within a century for dozens of generations,” Hamilton says.
In certain breeds, almost all of the dogs alive today are descendants of a handful of popular sires that exemplified traits that breeders liked — for instance, a snowy white coat or exceptional herding ability. In selecting for these desired traits, however, the breeders sometimes inadvertently selected for the sires’ undesirable genetic mutations. This appears to be the case with canine compulsive disorder. A half-dozen or so breeds are predisposed to get it and in fact are susceptible to particular forms of the disorder — for example, German shepherds tend to tail-chase, while Doberman pinschers suck their flanks. Dodman and his colleagues are running genetic analyses of 146 Dobermans, more than half of them afflicted and the others not. His hunch is that a genetic glitch that leads to overactive glutamate receptors may increase susceptibility for developing compulsive behaviors. The same may be true for people. If this is correct, then it would ratify an approach that Dodman and a colleague have patented for treating both animal and human compulsive disorders with drugs that inhibit the glutamate receptors. Similar hunts are under way for the genetic underpinnings of what looks like psychotic rage in cocker spaniels and phobias in Australian shepherds, and those searches, too, may yield drug treatments for the canine and human versions of those problems.
Though certain dogs are probably genetically predisposed, environmental factors are clearly involved as well. “All of the animals I see that have O.C.D. are anxious individuals who’ve been in a rock-and-a-hard-place conflict situation in their lives which precipitates their condition,” Dodman says. Stressful situations in which an animal is repeatedly prevented from doing what it wants to do lead to anxiety, and anxiety can be relieved by indulging in a repeated behavior that long outlasts the original situation. That, it turned out, was exactly the case with Max. Though he lived a perfect dog’s life in California — plenty of love, company and exercise — Allan said that for most of the first year of his life, when he belonged to another owner, he was confined inside and all alone.
At end of the day that I visited Dodman, we sat watching video clips of dogs repetitively pacing, chasing shadows and snapping at nonexistent flies. Dodman, leaning back in his chair, launched into a story about a human obsessive-compulsive-disorder sufferer he had met — a man who repeatedly tugged at his beard. Dodman asked him if he had ever stopped, and the man said he did during a hitchhiking trip across Canada. Dodman thought he knew why: “He went back to being a human being. He was watching out for real dangers. He was trying to go to real places. He was concerned about his next meal. He was thinking about where he was going to sleep. And he wasn’t concerned about the stupid beard pulling, because now he had a real life. When did the problem start again? The minute he sat back in front of a flickering computer screen.”
Dodman’s theory, essentially, is that the causes of mood disorders and obsessions in humans and our pets aren’t so different — faulty genetics, dreary environments. Whether cubicle- or cage-bound, we get too little exercise; we don’t hunt, run or play enough to produce naturally mood-elevating neurochemicals. Strangely enough, I had already heard this theory — from a pharmaceutical company executive who, for obvious business reasons, didn’t want to be named. “All of the behavioral issues that we have created in ourselves, we are now creating in our pets because they live in the same unhealthy environments that we do,” he said. “That’s why there is a market for these drugs.”
Hi gloe,
Another week goes bye.
Just want to say hi and thank you for your reply.
Been enjoying some alternative studies recently, when time allows. Dali books, it seems like Spain might be shaping up a little after the summer. I have always liked Dali and that period of time(Dada??). Believe it or not, I am good friends with the grand daughter of Max Ernst.
Other than above, still working on a few questions to help the fluctuations.
Next week I am going to do a day of volunteer work for a yoga org. I will be wearing a white yoga outfit like a Sadhu in NYC.
Ok sorry for the rant.
Blessings
&
Have a good weekend.
sbird
don't worry about a reply . . . glad you figured out the iHub glitch. :)
Hi gloe,
Sorry to be tard eee with my reply :o( .
Actually on Friday something on IHUB and my cookies changed ???
During the day ( Friday) I tried to work with the instructions etc, but nothing would give. So I traded the morning section and wrote IHUB an e mail about my problem. Due to the weekends activies and perhaps a little break from the screen I did not fool around with this issue till today.
Ha Ha on me for I had forgot which e mail address I used back when I joined. Only today did I put it together , what was what.
Yes during the summer will be nice :o) Yes a little advanced glance would be fun.
Best wishes,
sbird
Hi sbird,
Avon is also nice.
Any time this summer is fine. Let me know. It would be good to put a face with the name, no?
Yes, I like your questions.
gloe
Hi gloe,
Hope all is well for ya.
Thank you so much for the java suggestion :o).
As it stands we will not being doin the NJ beach walk this weekend. Perhaps in the summer we can try that? :o) ?
Sorry it has taken me a day or so to get back to ya. Had to see what was what this up and coming weekend.
Actually we walked to Belmar Beach from Avon about 2 years ago and went to a large out of doors fair. It was nice.
We stayed at a house that rents out rooms by the ocean. That time about 6 or so of the rooms were taken by Xylophone students who came to study with thier teacher.
I really like that area, but I like breathing ocean air, walking on the sand and if possible yes swimming (with googles just incase there are any SHARKS). Here in the capple I swim 2x's a week in a pool. I found it so interesting how it allowed me the ability to swim perhaps 1/2 hr. or so in the oceans of my travels. ESP.ly if the current is not killer.
By the way this is so nice, your 'My Other Collection" site. I have read several of your listings. Sometimes it is a blessing to find some good foot prints to follow or be influenced by.
I want to wish you a great weekend.
Best wishes,
sb
***Do you like these ?'s.
1. Am I spending my life running after the fulfilment of other people's desires?
2. Do I have a destiny for myself ( of my own)?
3. Did I come to this earth to attain something?
Hi sbird. You might want to try the Belmar Beach for a change. It's really nice there. I could come meet you and the missus for a cup of java.
I only have a small health food store near me now, but when I was in Las Vegas there was a huge Wild Oats which I absolutely loved! So enjoy the Whole foods and the brocc ing!!
Just interesting "other" stuff I want to keep track of.
Create in me a pure heart, O my God, and renew a tranquil conscience within me, O my Hope! Through the spirit of power confirm Thou me in Thy Cause, O my Best-Beloved, and by the light of Thy glory reveal unto me Thy path, O Thou the Goal of my desire! Through the power of Thy transcendent might lift me up unto the heaven of Thy holiness, O Source of my being, and by the breezes of Thine eternity gladden me, O Thou Who art my God! Let Thine everlasting melodies breathe tranquility on me, O my Companion, and let the riches of Thine ancient countenance deliver me from all except Thee, O my Master, and let the tidings of the revelation of Thine incorruptible Essence bring me joy, O Thou Who art the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden! ~ Baha'i Prayer
Healing Baha'i Prayer: Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. ~ Baha’u'llah
Is it possible, I asked myself, that I'm being summoned from some deep and holy place within? Am I being asked to enter a passage in the Spiritual life - the journey from false self to true self? Am I being asked to dismantle old masks and patterns and unfold a deeper, more authentice self - the one I intended to be? Am I being compelled to disturb my inner universe in quest of the undiscovered being who clamors from within?
Sue Monk Kidd in When the Heart Waits
This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
Amazing Photos: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/11/13/breathtaking-photography.aspx
Some favorites:
Blogs/forums:
http://xtrends.blogspot.com/
http://worldmarket.blogspot.com/
http://woodiescciclub.com/forum/index.php?sid=04936ba0d21dd4b2640dbd1bf331b441
http://www.tradingthecharts.com/phpBB/index.php
http://tradersparadise.blogspot.com/
http://tradershaven.net/forum/php/phpBB2/index.php
http://trendythird.blogspot.com/
http://forum.themarkettraders.com/list-m/26 (MISH)
http://technitrend.blogspot.com/
http://www.kirkreport.com/
http://wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/winter/ (RUSS WINTER)
http://www.rgemonitor.com/simple_content_frame.html (Roubini)
http://www.forum.qtusers.com/index.php (QT Users)
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/ (MISH Blog)
http://glorytrades.com/forum/index.php?sid=51a516b0475ec385ee511f200a3fc09c (my forum)
http://glorytrades.blogspot.com/ (my blog)
and last but not least: http://www.billcara.com/ (the best)
News:
http://premium.econoday.com/calendar/US/EN/New_York/year/2007/month/06/day/11/daily/index.html (Main source of eco releases)
http://finance.yahoo.com/marketupdate/overview?u (daily overview with intra-day updates)
http://www.dailyfx.com/ (world wide eco news - click "calendar")
Investing: SPX Dividend Yield: http://www.indexarb.com/dividendYieldSortedsp.html
Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well. ~ Epictetus
When you recognize and understand your weaknesses that is when you can truly begin to focus on your strengths. Sol Palha
Great site for lyrics: http://www.sing365.com/index.html
Volume | |
Day Range: | |
Bid Price | |
Ask Price | |
Last Trade Time: |