Reading and Writing and Other Stuff

I read a story titled SWEETHEARTS by Richard Ford and I liked it very much. If you read it I'd like to know your opinion of it.


"I try to be candid and level with people, and not purvey a bunch of horseshit."
--Richard Ford

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The current Issue of America (the national catholic weekly) sponsers the Foley Poetry Contest with a prize of $1,000. Wow!

Wergle Floomp humor poetry contest is another site with worthwhile prizes for the winning entry.

The Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest might be of some interest, although it requires a $15 entry fee. I am leery of contests that ask for an entry fee.

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What Should I Write About Next?

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I recently bought a 99-cent Kindle eBook titled Alone. It is a police procedure action novel written by Lisa Gardner and I found it to be surprisingly enjoyable... an excellent example of skillfully applied 'craftsmanship' with no pretension of being 'literature' -- just a 'good read.' It was good enough that I intend to read some more of Lisa Gardner's work.

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Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCaan is another eBook I am thinking about buying, even though it is a bit pricey (for a Kindle book) -- I downloaded an excerpt from the book in .pdf format and as soon as I get around to reading it I will decide if I want to pay Amazon.com $6 for it... or not.

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"The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true."
--John Steinbeck

So Many Things I Do Not Know

Well, I found that I had a winner yesterday on the Friday night Arizona Mega-Millions drawing. Only three numbers... only seven dollars, but that's better than nothing, or so I've been told... Much, much better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

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When, at a web page from the UK, I read: "This helps to protect against any food bourne illness that can occur..." I wondered at the spelling of 'bourne' which I don't remember having encountered before. But I was not sufficiently curious as to do further research on the difference between food bourne and the more common food born or food borne used in the US.

Below is more from that same publication:

Organic milk comes from cows that have been grazed on pasture that has no chemical fertilisers, pesticides or agrochemicals used on it.The producers must register with an approved organic body and are subject to regular inspection. Once the cows have been milked, the milk is treated in exactly the same way as regular pasteurised milk.

There is no evidence to suggest that organic milk is any more nutritious than conventionally produced milk. Although there have been studies to show that organically produced milk contains higher levels of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, these are plant derived, short-chain fatty acids which appear to be of limited health benefit compared to the longer chain omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish.

Good Golly Miss Molly! There is so much in this world that I don't know.

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Bet you didn't know that . . .

The plural of penis is penes, although in the U.S. penises (through common usage) has now become a grammatically correct plural form for penis.

And . . .

The record for the largest penis to body size ratio is held by the barnacle. The barnacle's penis can grow to up to forty times its own body length. This enables them to reach the nearest female.

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From AWAD...

lacuna

PRONUNCIATION:
(luh-KYOO-nuh)
plural lacunae (luh-KYOO-nee) or lacunas

MEANING:
noun: An empty space, gap, missing part, an opening.

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There is an interesting piece on Names that could be useful to writers:

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"What we take away from our reading of a good novel is mainly is the memory of character."
--Elizabeth George

Another Weekend Is Upon Us . . .

I am not a lover of music. In fact, music does not stir me, does not comfort me, and for the most part and most of the time music is just something that occurs in the background and it rarely intrudes upon my concentration of a specific task at hand. But sometimes I do enjoy listening to some of the old tunes, sung by the artists who were popular during the years of my younger life. Such as:

Frank Sinatra

There is a Frank Sinatra Youtube mix of 40 songs of which you can select the one you want to hear or click play-all and they play one after the other.

If you're into that sort of thing.

Here's a little Frank Sinatra background piece.

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Here are three shots of a hawk perched in a tree across the street from the house.

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Anthropocentrism: All of God's Special Little Snowflakes is a short guest essay by Any Peters, posted on Pharyngula. It's a well-written and insightful piece. The comments that follow it are interesting, too.

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“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”
--E.L. Doctorow

Nothing To Write About, Again . . .

I've been too busy doing things out in the world today to get a blog entry posted, but I think that I did get some important business taken care of... and if so then there are some big changes in store for me, for this year. Time will tell.

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"No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you."
--Sholem Aleichem

Religion: Can Fantasy Become Reality?

Why is it, I wonder, that no single individual (or group of like-minded individuals) has successfully attempted to found a new church with no supernatural overtones (a modern-day organized religion without a ruling God) and being solely dedicated to providing free and effective 'help' to those in need? Or does such a church already exist?

I think not.

There is no reason, that I can see, why such a church could not be brought into being.

This organization could be called "The Church of Altruism" or some such label as that.

Altruism, according to Wikipedia is selfless concern for the welfare of others. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness.

How could a church based on altruism not be a good thing?

For such an undertaking to succeed, though, would certainly demand a radical change in our present day way of thinking about 'goodness' and 'morality.'

The primary tenet of this Church of Altruism would have to be the absolute separation of church and state, and the secondary tenet would be absolute non-profit.

These two tenets are more profound than they might appear at first glance.

The Church of Altruism would be funded solely by non-tax-exempt donations and all moneys collected would be strictly recorded and all government mandated taxes would be paid on the total without question. Good Grief! This Church of Altruism would be the ideal place for folks like John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and myriad others of the philanthropic persuasion.

There should be no Poverty

There should be no slums

Will we ever be able to be greeted by:
"Welcome to the Church of Altruism"

Probably not...

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Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
--Bertrand Russell

More Of This And That . . .

At 11:10 yesterday morning I suddenly felt the whole house shake and heard something that sounded like a dynamite blast. It happened three (maybe 4) times, in descending order of magnitude. Eve was asleep on the carpet in the front parlor and she jumped up and looked all around the room. After thinking about it, I wondered if perhaps it had been a distant earthquake.

On the news later I discovered that there had been an underground explosion a few miles away. No further details were given at that time.

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A former classmate sent me some images of advertisements from earlier times:











Those ads would certainly not be used in today's politically correct and timid, super-cautious society.


Also, I viewed some old time pictures of my hometown, Rensselaer, IN. While I realize that they will be of interest to only those who are familiar with that town, I am providing links to those photos, and here they are:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=114057651989020&aid=16702

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=114057651989020&aid=26630

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A few minutes ago I asked myself: "What's the difference between a buzzard and a vulture?" And then, after doing a bit of research (Google, etc.) I concluded that there is no difference at all.

Wikipedia gave me:

In the New World Buzzard can mean:

1. A vulture, particularly the American Black Vulture and Turkey Vulture, or as a general term for vultures.
2. In parts of the United States where they are considered pest, particularly in rural areas, a derogatory term for certain birds of prey, such as the Chicken hawk (a common colloquial name referring to either the Cooper's Hawk, the Sharp-shinned Hawk or the Red-tailed Hawk), or the Duck hawk (known elsewhere as the Peregrine Falcon).

So, I guess that I can call the big birds of prey I see flying above the mountains here in Tucson anything I want to call them.

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NASA Announcement

The launch of NASA's Glory spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California has been postponed at least 24 hours. The next launch attempt is no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 24, at 5:09 a.m. EST.

Data to be collected by Glory will help scientists improve our ability to predict Earth's future environment and to distinguish human-induced climate change from natural climate variability.

Hm... now all we have to worry about is whether or not the actual results (if detrimental to man-made global warning doctrine) will be made available (via the media) to the public.

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"A professor is someone who talks in someone else's sleep."
--W.H. Auden

Censorship, Communism, Canines, etc.

Another Way to Burn a Book is an article by Stephanie Segall for The Hoover Institution Stanford University. It is a review of the book by Diane Ravitch titled The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn.

Below is the opening of the article:

In the early 1970s a publishing house approached author Ray Bradbury asking to reprint his short story, “A Fog Horn,” for a high-school textbook. Bradbury refused upon learning that the editor of the reader deleted two phrases from the story: “in the Presence” and “God-Light.”

This particular incident prompted Bradbury to add a coda to his most well-known work, Fahrenheit 451, in which he wrote: There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse.

Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

Bradbury is just one of many whistle-blowers who have felt an obligation to speak out against the witless censorship of overly sensitive interest groups. A compelling addition to the literature is New York University education professor Diane Ravitch’s exposé on censors of American public education, The Language Police.

In case you missed the link above and would like to read the article, you can do so at:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/6560

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More Thoughts On The Communist Manifesto

When I was considering which title to use for yesterday's entry the most obvious one was The Common People Are Revolting but then, on second thought, I realized that this title was somewhat ambiguous; it could be taken two ways, depending on the reader's immediately perceived definition of the word revolting.

Think about it . . .

The first line of Chapter 1 in the Manifesto is: 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." That sentence alone is a subject for much additional research (by me) as well as for some original personal thought.

The chapter's second paragraph states:

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

What has changed since the above words were proclaimed? The governments of the world have proven the veracity of what was then merely proposed and the people have come to realize this. The common people have also come to realize that they can do something about it, by demonstrating before the cameras of the media and thereby notifying their various corrupt and criminal governments that change is mandatory and will be enacted immediately or peaceful demonstrations will end and devastating violence will ensue.

What has not changed in today's world? Class distinctions, that's what. Class envy is, of course, the desire for supposedly underprivileged persons, groups, or cultures to wrest these privileges from those seemingly more fortunate folks who presently enjoy them.

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A while back I took a couple pictures of Eva doing her thing out on the swimming pool deck.

Eva On The Run

Eva Versus A Fly

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The Kids Are All Right is a movie that I now feel is a must see. after reading a review by Greta Christina but I suppose I should wait a while until the price(at eBay or Amazon used) for the DVD comes down to where I feel I can afford it. Or maybe I can borrow it from my local library.

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Do Common People Despise Government?

Today is Presidents Day in the United States. What is the significance of that? It's a Federal Holiday. Which means what? you might ask. Well, the banks are closed, government offices are closed (including postal mail delivery) and in most areas garbage collection is delayed one day -- stuff like that.

What benefit does this Presidents Day holiday offer to the general public? Any at all?

That's a pretty good question.

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The Manifesto of the Communist Party.pdf is a document I have never read during the 71 years of my life (until now) and I am truly amazed at some of the new thoughts that enter my mind as I am reading it. I'll have more about this at a later date.

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I am still researching methods of self-publishing. The Amazon.com method seems a bit complicated to me, unless of course you turn the raw data completely over to them and pay them thousands of dollars to do it for you. There is another way to publish a book and I am looking into it now; it's called Feedbooks and may be what I've been searching for... or not.

Oops...!

Some time has passed since I wrote the above, and now I have read more about self-publishing with Feedbooks...

I don't think so.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
-Thomas Jefferson

Science? Fiction? Or . . .?

The final mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled for February 24, 2011. Discovery will deliver the PMM (Permanent Multipurpose Module) to the International Space Station and will also carry Robonaut 2, which will be the first human-like robot in space, Robonaut 2 will become a permanent resident of the station.

Uh-oh... reminiscent of HAL, but Robonaut 2 will be orbiting Earth. Yikes!

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Still tending to my other current writing endeavor.

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Things To Do . . .

For the last couple of days I have been busily gathering what I like to consider to be the best of my unpublished poems, fiction stories, and flash fiction efforts. After polishing each one, I convert the MS Word document into an Adobe .pdf file and then print it out.

After I am finished with this selection of manuscripts I intend to add some factual autobiographical introductions (tales from the earlier years, 1940s onward) to introduce each one of them, then combine all into a single volume and self-publish it as an ebook. If all goes well, I might also attempt a print edition. But I have not solidified the plan yet. Perhaps Amazon.com has a method I can use.

Time will tell.

Well, what the heck... it's better than no book at all, isn't it? My great great grand-kids on down the line might get a kick out reading it.

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Yesterday evening while walking Eva, Mike and I saw the moon rising above the mountains at a little after six o'clock, just a few minutes before sunset. I managed to get a shot of it.

Moon Rising Over The Mountains

Tucson, Arizona - February 17, 2011

Then a few minutes later . . .

(Click images for larger view)

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Here Is A Satirical Heterosexual Youtube Video

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Yes, I realize that today's entry is a short one, but I have many pressing jobs of work to do.

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No Title Necessary . . .

The Social Security Administration announces that retirement age is no longer 65 and has now been increased. For example, if you were born in 1960 or later, the age you must be to start receiving full retirement benefits is 67.

For information, including the age you must be to receive your full benefits, go to:

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/ageincrease.htm

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Ernest Hemingway

From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write and for no other reason that you know of. But what about all the reasons that no one knows?
--Ernest Hemingway

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Things Currently On My Mind . . .

Word Of The Day

pip
noun:
1. The small seed of a fruit, such as an apple or an orange.
2. Something or someone wonderful.
also . . .
1. One of the dots or symbols on a die, playing card, or domino.
2. Any of the diamond-shaped segments on the surface of a pineapple.
3. An insignia on the shoulder indicating an officer's rank.

And there's more, much more . . . The word pip has a multitude of meanings. See:

http://wordsmith.org/words/pip.html

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I encountered a forum that lists scads of websites offering online education that might be of value to someone who happens to read this.

http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/p/29527/227309.aspx#227309

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There exists an audio podcast of a blog entry titled Against The Gods, written by By Stefan Molyneux. I read the printed text of that piece and found it to be interesting enough to point others to it. The article's introduction begins:

While strolling through the sunny woods one day, you spy a man slithering through the undergrowth, heavily camouflaged and gripping a bow and arrow. "What are you hunting?" you ask. "Dragons!" hisses the man proudly. You frown. "Dragons? But dragons don’t exist!" The man nods emphatically. "I completely agree with you! There ain’t no such thing as dragons. And I’m a-gonna shoot me one!" He raises his bow and arrow, narrows his eyes and glares through the trees, hungry to target the non-existent.

At this point, you would surely take a series of slow and steady steps backwards, aiming to put some safer distance between you and a deranged man wielding a bow and arrow.

This is one of the many, many challenges of atheism.

A link to that piece is below:

http://www.freedomainradio.com/Blogs/tabid/63/Article/24/against-the-gods.aspx

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Tempel 1 Comet

The above photo is one of many from NASA

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This phrase from The Blind Old Man ...the earth mutters so much about its children... is only one of the many lines of the poem that make no sense to me. Almost all of the poem's lines are blatantly untrue except when considered from the point of view of an ignorant, completely uneducated reader of poems.

Of course, it might be that I am too much of a clod to be able to appreciate the many nuanced aspects of poetry.

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"I try to be candid and level with people, and not purvey a bunch of horseshit."

--Richard Ford

Can't Think of a Title . . .

From time to time I like to remind folks that I have a personal website (not a blog) using my own domain -- http://www.genechambers.com/ -- It contains a brief bio of myself, some of my unpublished (possibly unpublishable) writing, and odds and ends from my sorely disordered mind.

Also:

I have a list of my favorite websites, most of which I visit almost every day. In case you are curious as to what kind of material I like to read and would like to take a look at this list, below is a link to it.

http://www.genechambers.com/linkpage.htm

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This is Peter Abresch

Check out this author HERE

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Martin S. Pribble has an interesting piece regarding atheists and violence, including a fascinating Youtube video about Bigotry in America today that might just open the eyes of some of you readers who had not considered the subject before.

I thoroughly enjoyed the article and the video... but you might not. Or then again, you just might.

Once again, the link is:

http://www.martinspribble.com/2011/02/14/atheists-and-violence/

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Art Spiegelman was the first graphics novel writer to receive the Pulitzer Prize. His book Maus: A Survivor's Tale, earned Spiegelman fame.


Spiegelman completed the tale in 1991 with Maus II: From Mauschwitz to the Catskills. Art Spiegelman received the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

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One of my hobbies is proof reading authors' manuscripts and online stories and blogs. But it's a hobby only, and not a vocation. See my information sheet at http://www.genechambers.com/edit.htm for more about this FREE service I offer to writers and authors.

What do you think? Do you have a piece of writing you'd like for me to examine? Let me know.

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A bit of nostalgia . . .

Censorship, KFC, Etc.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

You can listen to and read a sweet Valentine poem and then read all about Valentine's Day over at The Writer's Almanac if you want to.

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That little faggot, he's a millionaire is the title of a Language Log posting by Geoffrey K. Pullum regarding Canada's censorship of the song Money For Nothing. It's an interesting article.

Click HERE to hear Money For Nothing by Dire Straits in a Youtube video.

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This is a Wild Pig

No reason for displaying this...

just thought it was intriguing.

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Yesterday, while on my daily fitness walk through the desert's edge on the East side of Tucson I stopped at a roadside yard sale, where I had a most enjoyable conversation with the residents, a knowledgeable Classic Car enthusiast and his lovely lady companion who questioned me about how to start up a blog. The Classic Car guy said that she is a frustrated journalist. I told her all I could about blogging, which was not much since I am certainly not an expert and told her that if she would email me I will get her some more info on starting up a blog.

She can learn about blogging by clicking HERE

Sure hope I hear from her. If I do, and if she starts up a blog of her own, I will report on its progress and provide my multitude of readers with a link to it.

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The plural form of dwarf is dwarfs, not dwarves.
--Mark Liberman

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KFC has a new sandwich -- with no bun...

Check it out HERE http://www.kfc.com/doubledown/

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Two kids are walking in the woods when one sees some rabbit pellets on the ground. "What are those?" he asks. "They're smart pills" says the other kid, "eat them and they'll make you smarter." The first kid says, "Really?" He picks a couple of them up and eats them. "They taste like shit," he says, and the other kid says, "See, you're getting smarter already."

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Religion, Religion, And More Religion

An Imaginary Conversation With A 4-year-old -- about religion.

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Religion and Ethics is a website I recently discovered, which is a companion to the WNET TV show and it promises to be a source of valuable information regarding religion.

Since its debut in 1997, RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY has set itself apart from the mainstream media by providing distinctive, cutting-edge news coverage and analysis of national and international events in the ever-changing religious world. Hosted by veteran journalist Bob Abernethy and produced by Thirteen/WNET New York, the acclaimed one-of-a-kind TV show examines religion’s role -- and the ethical dimensions -- behind top news headlines.

Major funding for RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY is provided by Lilly Endowment Inc. with additional support from Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, The Henry Luce Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and individual supporters.

One of the things I learned from listening to the show is that George Beverly Shea is now 102 years old and still sings his Christian spiritual hymns to large audiences... amazing.

I am always eager to learn more about religion...for my own reasons, of course.

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Who is Justin Bieber?

After hearing the name Justin Bieber mentioned several times on TV this week, I decided to find out more about this person. And I read: "With a smooth voice, good looks and a string of hits, teen icon Justin Bieber has accumulated millions of fans and sold 3.7 million albums, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Now Bieber's handlers are showcasing another side of the 16-year-old pop sensation to strengthen his fan base: his Christianity."

That tells me all I want to know about Justin Bieber.

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TO BE OR NOT TO BE absolutely IS the question, especially when one grows old and damnably frail.

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Why Am I Biding My Time?

While attempting to clean up some of my old and seldom visited folders within the electronic filing cabinet that is my computer, I became distracted by reading some of the old unpublished stories residing therein. Most of these old stories were in sore need of revision... but I wondered why the devil I was letting them all just lie there like useless articles of assorted junk. They were actual stories and could, with a bit of work, be sent off in hopes of finding a publisher.

Why not? It will take a good bit of work and lots of time, but why should that be a problem?

Sounds like a plan . . .

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As I was writing this blog entry, a large hawk flew up and landed in a tree just outside my room. I grabbed up my camera, and...

Hawk through window screen

Not the best snapshot, but . . .

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Another thought just materialized in my mind. I can collect all those stories, poems, and flash fiction squiggles into a special folder, revise and polish them, convert them to .pdf files, and then self-publish them in a single volume, using that new Amazon.com process. So what if it is not a literary masterpiece? So what if it is a piece of trash? How many other books by other authors that I've read were, in my humble opinion, no more than pieces of trash?

Along with the stories, I could also intersperse them with short autobiographical bits about my somewhat unconventional life in the middle of the twentieth century, and... whatever. Such as the time I found myself alone and penniless in Nebraska and worked as a tractor driving hay-raker in the meadows of a large cattle ranch -- alongside a fascinating (and eye opening) pair of brothers who happened to be full-blooded Sioux Indians. The product of such an endeavor might be of some interest to readers (especially those of my not yet born family members) in the near or far future.

This too sounds like a plan . . .

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So, what am I waiting for?

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Troubling Items In The News . . .

How Long Before Facebook Hands Over Your
Personal Information to the Government?

It may only be a matter of time until social networking sites are forced to relinquish your personal information to the government.

Read about it at AlterNet


AlterNet also reports on --

The Controversial Huffington Post-AOL Merger

...and raises a number of questions about the future of journalism.

Arianna Huffington

Who Is She... Really?

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I am certainly not a gourmet, but for several years I have enjoyed experimenting with food preparation. At times I succeed in discovering a taste treat for myself and other times I fail. For instance: I dribbled canned Hershey's chocolate syrup onto the face of two slices of whole grain bread and allowed it to soak in for about a half hour then spread over it a thick coating of peanut butter. Simple. Delicious.

Don't knock it unless you've tried it.

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More later today . . . Maybe.

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On Religion (Yes, Again)

While conducting personal research regarding religions, I recently read in The Dominion of War by Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton that the Aztec religious system demanded the blood of human beings to maintain the balance of the cosmos and insure that the sun would rise each day. By 1500 approximately 50,000 prisoners of war had to be taken annually to serve as sacrificial victims.

Now that, to me, is hard to believe -- that the entire populace of a 'civilization' could be taken in and their lives guided by such nonsense. Of course, it is just as hard for me to believe that a few men could be so immersed in their own set of religious beliefs that they would actually conspire to fly airplanes into public buildings and kill thousands of innocent people. Or that a group of nomadic shepherds could proclaim themselves as The Chosen People of The One True God, in effect branding all other peoples as dogs... thereby fomenting unrest, violence, and brutal hatred of their race and religion by millions of other human beings throughout history.

Serious study of the history of religions can make your head spin. People, it seems, will believe anything no matter how fantastic if it is presented to them convincingly and is something they want to believe.

One of Lewis Carroll's characters said, "If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the believing-muscles of your mind, and then you'll be so weak you won't be able to believe the simplest true things."

Despite Lewis Carroll's warning, I'm afraid that after seven decades I have tired out the believing-muscles of my mind,

But I am not an atheist. I do not blather from a soapbox (or a blog) and shout out that "There is no God and all religions should be abolished." Those who do so are (in my estimation) no different in their narrow-minded thinking than are the religionists or the theists that these science worshiping naysayers preach against with such scorn.

The modern militant atheist pooh-poohs the recently proposed idea of 'Intelligent Design.'

It seems to me that Intelligent Design could be the method by which human beings on the Earth came about... but not by any of the simplistic personal gods proposed by organized religions. To say, as do the atheists, that some kind of race or entity could not have set in motion human kind is even more an example of vanity than is religious 'faith' itself. How can one declare so definitely that some being or non-human race of beings exist that are absolutely undetectable by human senses and totally unimaginable to human cognition could not be powerful enough to have 'created' thinking man from a previous prehistoric animal state?

After all... as of now, there are more than 500 million Facebook users worldwide, and the company is valued at more than $43 billion. Who would have believed that?

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If It Tastes Good . . .

Herman Cain is considering running as the Republican candidate for president...

Herman Cain

Herman Cain's experience includes positions with Coca-Cola, Pillsbury, Burger King, Godfather's Pizza, and more recently, Talk Radio.

http://www.hermancain.com/ is home to Herman Cain's presidential exploratory committee.


On the subject of Big Food . . .

Is it true that Big Food companies hijack our brains?

Gained from reading the above, I am almost persuaded to begin eating only 'natural' foods and to cook 'totally' without flavor enhancement such as salt, butter, sugar, or anything like that and to eat the simply cooked food as is, without additives of any kind ... additionally, one way to stop eating too much of the wrong stuff is to realize we’re being manipulated by a powerful industry and speak out against bad food.

Manipulation by powerful entities?

Hm.

If it tastes good... eat it!

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"Ah, good taste, what a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness."
--Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor (1881-1973)

Traditions . . .

Groundhog Day

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I Know So LIttle . . .

The New Word For Today is:
obesogenic

I first encountered the newly manufactured word obesogenic while reading Greta Christina's weblog and I thought it was a truly grand word indeed. Obesogenic (obese with an -ogenic tacked on) refers to conditions that lead people to become excessively fat. More about that can be learned from the CDC which is the Center For Disease Control and if you don't think that obesity is a disease then you should definitely skip on over there and do some investigating. There you will find a wealth of information.

In case you missed the CDC link above, you can click HERE.

Diet and weight related illnesses have become the number one preventable cause of death in North America.

I have read that statement and heard it spoken time after time. I don't know if it is true or not, but I suspect it is. And that is truly frightening. I say it is frightening because it indicates that people (millions of individuals) are being systematically hoodwinked into becoming obese.

Some things I have read recently that I did not know:

Rice inhibits the activity of Vitamin A; wheat has a chemical that impedes the action of zinc and can lead to stunted growth; maize is deficient in essential amino acids and contains phytates, which prevent the absorption of iron.

And:

Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven - corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats - account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors.

Wow! Talk about resistance to change.

Good Grief! The more I learn about nutrition the more nervous I become. What else do I not know?

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