05.30.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:56 pm by Administrator
Well, I’m back after a two week blogging break. Brian and I took a trip to the UK, and while I am happy to be back again, I’m shocked at how the gas prices here in LA have once again risen in such a short time. Last January when Andrew and I took a short two week trip to the Philippines, we came back to find that gasoline prices had increased about 30 cents per gallon while we were away. Then just this May, Brian and I took off for another short two weeks, and alas, the gasoline prices increased yet again about another 30 cents! Regular unleaded is now over $4.00 a gallon. The cheapest I’ve seen since we’ve returned is $4.07 per gallon, regular unleaded. Cripes, if this keeps up, I’m gonna have to get my bicycle back in working order. Driving will be reserved only for “necessary” long distance driving. Ha! Let’s see if I can hold to that! Well, to look at it with a little more perspective, the gasoline prices in the UK is over $9.00 a gallon! Yikes! You’d think I should be thanking my lucky stars that we are only up to $4 a gallon, but then again, the British pound is worth double our American dollars, so it kind of balances out. However, I was happy to see on the British news that they are pressing their government to lower petrol prices. Hopefully, America will come to their senses and follow suit.
I know I haven’t finished my travelogue of the Philippines, but for the most part, I’ve pretty much covered the basics. I do want to go back to a bit of it, particularly some of the things I found interesting or unusual, but for now, I want to share some stuff on our recent trip to the UK. The original intent was to visit the Isle of Man. As we researched flights and bookings, we decided if we’re gonna go all that way over there, we might as well visit London, too, for the heck of it. This was actually put together on somewhat short notice when I saw that we had a window of opportunity to make a short trip. So we tried out Expedia.com for the first time to see what flight rates and bookings were running. (BTW, we turned out to be happy with how things worked out with Expedia.com. It was easy to book and no problems at any points along the way). Naturally we wanted to find good rates, and we found that flying out in the middle of the week is cheaper than flying out on the weekends. Expedia got us booked with American Airlines starting from LAX to Chicago, then connecting from Chicago to Manchester. We had to get in to Manchester because there are no flights from London Heathrow to Isle of Man. I really didn’t think much of it other than I supposed that there likely isn’t a big influx of people flying in to the Isle of Man, and thus I shouldn’t expect lots of direct flights to Isle of Man. It wasn’t until we landed in Manchester that the light went on in my head. The trigger to my revelation was the first sight we saw as we disembarked from our plane. The terminal gate had glass windows where we could see the plane from which we were disembarking. It was one of American Airlines’ 767s, a fairly large plane. Right next to it was a tiny little white plane with the large lettering that read, “Flybe” in baby blue. Ack! Our connecting flight to IoM is with Flybe. This will be my first time on such a small plane. Granted I know there are much smaller planes, but I’ve never been on one of those. It actually looked rather cute, so I tried to get a comparison pic of the size of the Flybe plane next to the American Airlines plane. The terminal didn’t allow for such a good shot, but maybe this shot will give a slight idea.
The plane we had just gotten off of was the sliver AA plane on the left with the red and blue stripes. The Flybe plane is the cute little one on the right. So I thought, “well, this should be interesting.” After getting through the checkpoints for our connecting flight, we were directed to our connecting gate. It didn’t take long before we saw this approaching:
Erp, that plane has external propellers! Hee hee.
Seeing that it parked itself near our gate (I don’t think the plane was tall/big enough to reach the arm that lead from the building to the planes. We had to board from the ground and climb a short ladder to board), we realized that this was our chariot to the IoM.
It reminded me of the story my dad told us about his first flight to the U.S. from the Philippines many years ago. My dad actually came to America first before the rest of us. He said the planes back then (in the 1950s or so) were quite small and slow. The chairs were like wooden auditorium chairs bolted to the floor of the plane. And it had propellers since jet engines were not standards for commercial flights. (Maybe not any flights during that time, for that matter!) He said it was also quite loud. Well this Flybe plane was a bit louder on the inside than the other larger commercial airliners. The cabin space on the inside, although not as bad as wooden chairs, reminded me of the size of the inside of a school bus–two seats on either side of the bus with one aisle going down the middle.
Fortunately, the flight from Manchester to the IoM is only about 30 minutes, and it was actually a pretty nice flight. We received a friendly greeting as we boarded the plane, which turned out to be the beginning of a wonderful experience that followed. And I can’t help it, I’m a geek about taking pics from the air. Here’s a shot of Manchester as we were leaving for the IoM. It was a bit too foggy to get a good shot of the IoM from the air.
We were met at Ronaldsway (IoM’s airport) by our friends, who got us set up and situated for a nice week in the Isle of Man. We found that another reason for the very small planes is that their airport is rather small, and the runways are not suitable for the larger commercial airliners. There is currently talks on the table as to whether they (IoM) will shell out mega bucks soon to upgrade and extend Ronaldsway to accommodate the larger planes.
It didn’t take long for me to see that Isle of Man has the terrain and history of what legends and fairytales are made of. And they do have their own! The rolling green hills dotted with sheep and cows, the glimmer of the ocean, the ancient castles, and the lush glens are but a few sights that have no doubt impressed not only myself, but many other people who have seen it. Ellan Vannin, they call it with much affection and much love. I believe Ellan means island, and Vannin refers to man. There is even a song with the following lyrics:
Eliza Craven Green, before 1896
When the summer day is over
And the busy cares have flown,
Then I sit beneath the starlight
With a weary heart. alone,
And there rises like a vision,
Sparkling bright in nature’s glee,
My own dear Ellan Vannin
With its green hills by the sea. |
|
Then I hear the wavelets murmur
As they kiss the fairy shore,
Then beneath the em’rald waters
Sings the mermaid as of yore,
And the fair Isle shines with beauty
As in youth it dawned on me,
My own dear Ellan Vannin
With its green hills by the sea. |
Then mem’ries sweet and tender
Come like music’s plaintive flow,
Of someone in Ellan Vannin
That lov’d me long ago,
So I give with tears and blessings,
And my fondest thoughts to thee,
My own dear Ellan Vannin
With its green hills by the sea.
I’m happy to say that there are still lovely green hills by the sea there! 
Toodles for now!
Marlakins
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05.09.08
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, Historical Trivia, Uncategorized at 11:08 pm by Administrator
Tomorrow I plan to return all my library loans because I’ll be out of town for a couple weeks. But first, I wanted to take some notes from the books because that’s what I like to do to help me remember things I find of interest. Two of the books I’m referring to at this time are Parade of the Dead by John R. Bumgarner, M.D. and Death March by Donald Knox. There were a couple things I wanted to note, one of them being what kinds of observations were made regarding the effects of malnutrition on the prisoners. Bumgarner wrote that lots of strange and unusual health problems arose from the malnutrition the men were experiencing. Knox’s book corroborates some of the observations by Bumgarner.
Some of the most prevalent diseases caused by lack of food were scurvy, blindness, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and beriberi. While I understand that the eyes need proper nutrients to remain healthy, I never knew that people actually went “blind” from malnutrition. I’ve heard of night blindness due to vit A deficiency, but not outright blindness. One explanation for the blindness experienced by some of the men was lack of vitamin B6. Vitamin B6 deficiency can damage the optic nerve and lead to blindness. I wonder how many of us who have weak vision could improve our vision with improved diet. The Eye Care Revolution by Robert Abel Jr., M.D. writes of preventing and reversing eye diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, etc. through the use of good nutrition. How many of us are suffering eye conditions that are really malnutrition related? I know we have plenty of food to eat, but are we eating the right foods and are we displacing good nutrition with too many highly processed foods which damages much of our nutrient intake? It’s believed by some that pesticides and other chemicals in our foods interfere with our utilization of vitamins such as vit A. I’ve read of some studies that link vit A deficiency to certain types of leukemia.
In Hampton Sides’ book Ghost Soldiers, the men commented on another “strange” health condition that they suffered due to their faulty diet. Some of the men grew breasts. Not just fat looking breasts, but female looking breasts like those of a young girl going through puberty. While there was not explanation given for that phenomenon, my guess is that the malnutrition was disrupting their hormone balance and thus creating unusual developments. Keep in mind these men weren’t growing breasts because they were too fat. These men were starving and many were too skinny. One thing that seems to confirm a hormone imbalance or disruption was that after a while of starvation, the men weren’t interested in women much. All they thought and talked about was food. But after more nourishment, then they would start to wake up with erections again and start thinking of women again.
There were other diseases that were complicated by the malnutrition, but were difficult to avoid just by the fact that they were living in tropical conditions. Such diseases included malaria, dysentery, and parasitic (intestinal) infections.
I’m particularly interested in the symptoms the men experienced due to malnutrition because I’m interested in the correlation of diet and sub-clinical disease symptoms. While severe malnutrition (such as what the prisoners endured) due to lack of food can cause full-blown diseases, I wonder how “slight” malnutrition would affect our health today. For instance, Matthias Rath, M.D., author of The Heart, wrote that vitamin C deficiency is linked to arteriosclerosis. Since arteriosclerosis is so prevalent in our society, Rath believed that most people are borderline vitamin C deficient although it is not commonly believed that our society is suffering from vit C deficiency at all. Since we’re only borderline deficient, we don’t exhibit the full-blown symptoms of scurvy, but as we continue to be chronically slightly vit C deficient symptoms develop slowly and quietly through the years. Now, I do know that many of the prisoners had trouble with their hearts, which very likely was caused by their severe malnutrition. I wonder if part of that was due to lack of vit C. Perhaps I should note that their main diet consisted of polished rice and on some occasions a sprig or two of some local greens. Protein was vary scarce, and one of the symptoms that developed with not enough protein was edema. This makes me wonder about conditions today where there are many people who suffer from edema. In particular, I recall reading of T.C. Fry, the famous “fruitarian.” He became quite sickly before his death, and if I recall correctly, one of the things he suffered from was edema. I think Fry’s longstanding fruitarian diet contributed to his ill health. I wonder if he had just included a little animal protein into his diet from time to time, he would not have suffered edema. Just a thought.
The other thing I found fascinating about the health condition of the prisoners is the incredible addiction to cigarettes. Many men actually traded their food for cigarettes even though they were skin and bones. They were starving to death, but would rather smoke a cigarette than eat food. I’ve heard that drug addicts also forgo food for drugs. I wonder what’s going on in the body that that happens. I wonder how much of it is physical or how much of it is mental?
Skin problems was another symptoms the prisoners would suffer. I can understand that lack of protein and key vitamins and minerals would inhibit proper wound healing, but some of the prisoners were developing skin lesions and boils. A description of the size of boils one prisoner had was about 6 to 8 inches long! Why, I wonder, would these men develop boils? I wonder if it was related to the toxic exposures they were encountering in the mines and factories where they were required to work coupled with the overall malnutrition?
Finally, I learned that there was “wet” beriberi and “dry” beriberi. All this time I thought there was just beriberi. Apparently people present with different symptoms. Basically, the wet beriberi caused the men to take on lots of fluids and swell up to enormous sizes. Sometimes their abdomens would swell up or their testicles, or some other part of their bodies. One man was described to have swelled up to 300 pounds! Amazing to think that someone starving to death could swell up to 300 pounds. . . When these men died, it was said that those moving the bodies had to be extremely careful because if the the corpses were not handled gently, the bodies could actually burst and spew out it’s contents. Dry beriberi was different. The person suffering from dry beriberi didn’t swell up to enormous sizes, but rather they would develop very, very painful feet. So painful in fact that just the touch of a fly landing on their feet would be enough to cause them excruciating pain.
I know there is a bit more about health and malnutrition from these prisoner of war books, but it’s getting late and I’ve got some things to do for now. So will stop here, and if I get a chance and can remember more stuff, I’ll continue with this. The other aspect of what I learned reading these POW books is about human nature. I see men in a different light after reading these books. While it’s true there is so much bad, there is also much good. The good is encouraging to me, and I do want to comment on that at some point. Maybe next post.
Marlakins
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05.05.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:04 am by Administrator
There has been quite a stir in some blogging circles in response to Ben Stein’s recent documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. This movie has created some pretty heated discussions singling out various aspects of the film and thus diverting necessary attention from the primary message of the film. For instance, one of topics that has cropped up, which is “not” the primary message of Ben Stein’s movie, is in regards to whether God exists. That was not the primary thrust of the movie, but rather one of the main points that I felt the film was trying to convey was that the scientific community actively rejects scientists who feel that science itself suggests the possibility that an intelligent designer was involved with the beginnings of life as opposed to random chance (no creator or life seeded from somewhere else), which is strongly and defensively touted by mainstream evolutionists. Basically, there is a “wall” dividing scientists who believe in a creator and those who do not, or at least don’t admit it. The significance of this is that when rejected by the scientific community, a scientist can be denied tenure, grants, publication in peer reviewed journals, etc. This is quite significant because then only atheists will dominate the science field. “Who” the creator is is a side issue, and the real “problem” that needs to be addressed is that currently science has “no” “proof” or even concrete evidence of how life began, so therefore scientists who feel that life did not start spontaneously should not be rejected by the scientific community, and hence denied tenure, grants, publication in peer reviewed journals, etc. Many prominent scientists believed and do believe in God and that belief did not stop them from using science and the laws of nature to direct their studies and discoveries.
Since the topic is so emotionally charged and controversial and also extends out to other areas of our society, I think the message that scientists who believe in intelligent design are being singled out and black listed has been a bit obscured. One of the ideas that obscures that position and is being hotly discussed pertains to Darwinism and its role in the Holocaust in WWII. The suggestion that the belief in Darwin’s theories on evolution and the survival of the fittest paved the way for the Holocaust of WWII under Hitler’s leadership is being debated. Although I think that is a very important and valid topic to discuss, the arguments seem to be only an offshoot of why intelligent design scientists are being black listed. I think the important issue at hand is to find a way to make sure that “no” scientists, regardless of their beliefs on the origins of man, should be censured, ridiculed, and blacklisted. That is what is being done, and that is what we need to keep in sight when fighting for our rights of freedom of speech.
While I know there is much, much more on the subject to talk about, I want to stop here to make sure that the main point doesn’t get muddled and lost with the “side issues.” This main point needs to surface. Basically, the awareness needs to be made that scientists who believe in a creator are being singled out and blacklisted. This needs to stop. We need to acknowledge this. If there is a God, and He did create the world and everything in it, it is only a fool who would deny His hand in all of life. The Bible tells us that, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.” If we take no stand, our society will eventually to be run by a bunch of fools, and we will be to blame.
Marlakins
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05.03.08
Posted in Uncategorized, knitting and crocheting at 5:27 pm by Administrator
This morning I met with my knit group, then afterwards headed over to visit one of my uncles for his 73rd birthday. Now that I’m back, I’ve got some time to organize around here. Brian and I are planning to take a trip to the UK on the 13th of May, and it’s starting to sink in how close that is, yikes! And I still haven’t finished my travelogue of the Philippines, oye. . . Anyway, before I do that, I wanted to update my knitting stuffs. Aside from reading (last week I finished another book called Death March, the Survivors of Bataan by Donald Knox), I have also been busy knitting away. So to catch up, I’m gonna post some of the stuff that I’ve completed so far. 
Here’s a pic of the second gansey I was making for Matthew. It’s still in progress here. The first one I made for him was brown. This one is gray. I think I’m gonna have to learn how to take better pictures so that the stitching work shows better. Hmm. Well, my camera is on the blink anyway, so I might just go out and get another camera. Anyway, the yarn I used is the same as from the first gansey I made for him. I used three hanks of Cascade’s Ecological Highland Peruvian wool. Matty liked it so well that he asked for another one. How about that? Now that this one is done, he’s got a list of other things he wants me to knit up for him. Brian is starting to get one the bandwagon, too. Come to think of it, I knitted up a cowl for him recently per his request. Forgot to take a pic of that one, maybe next time. Okay, so here’s the completed gansey.
Here’s me with a few more things that I’ve recently knitted up–a skinny scarf using the weave stitch and 100% alpaca wool that my friend Helen gave to me from her home in Australia. Thanks, “again,” Helen! It’s such a beautiful green. I added the brown which is 100% wool from Suss’s Yarn’s. I actually got the idea for the skinny scarf from the Knitty Gritty, but modified it to my own liking and with what yarns I had on hand. Also pictured is the result of my first attempt at fingerless gloves (I used the basic pattern from Marnie MacLean’s Hooray for me Gloves), and another pair of socks from some hand dyed yarn I picked up at Unwind in Burbank.
The socks are just a basic 2×2 rib socks that is knit using 100% Peruvian wool, sock weight. Since the gloves look a bit on the military side to me, I decided to make another pair with more girlie colors to give it more of a handmade, personal look. This is where I am so far with my second pair of fingerless gloves. I’ll have to take an updated picture of these when they’re done.
This is actually the left over yarn that I used to make one of my sister’s Christmas socks. I had just enough left to make a pair of fingerless gloves. This is also 100% wool, hand dyed yarn from Hissy Knits. Both fingerless gloves are made with sock yarn or fingering weight yarn. The first pair I made in the brown color above is Trekking yarn. I love that stuff, actually, and have another skein with another colorway that I’ve got lined up to make another pair of socks with soon. I’m hoping to get that done before we take our trip because by checking the weather reports for Isle of Man, I see they are pretty steadily in the 50 degrees there, yikes! Burrrr.
There are so many cute things to knit up, so I just keep knitting up things one right after another. Here’s my version of a pidge scarf. I used a type of weave stitch for this one (apparently there are quite a few variations of weave stitches. I got this stitch from the Vogue Stitchionary) and instead of adding buttons, I just fasten it with a clip that I already had. The yarn is a red worsted weight yarn with flecks of blue and yellow by Galloway Yarns. I “think” this is 95% wool. I’m too lazy to hunt for the label at the moment, so that’ll have to suffice for now.
And finally, below is with me and another scarf that I knit using a pattern from a book called Knitting New Scarves: 27 Distinctly Modern Designs by Lynne Barr. Personally, I like the front of the scarf, but I don’t like the back because the back looks like a back. That is one reason why one of the things on my list of “things to learn” is double sided knitting.
Well, that’s about all for now. I do have a sleeveless top in the works using ultra silk by Berrocco. Will post that once I’m done with it. But for now. . . dinner time! Woo hoo!
Marlakins
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