01.16.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:04 pm by Administrator
I made it! Whew! Just in time as I hoped! Here’s my first completed multidirectional blanket. I ran out of some of the original color, so I ad-libbed and added a different color on both ends to help make it more symmetrical.
This is what it looked like yesterday.
Here it is again today with Matty lying on it. This is his blanket per his request.
So we have about one hour before we leave, so just wanted to say that we’re off to the Pines tonight, and I won’t be home until February 15. I’ll probably try to make some stops at the internet cafes in the Pines, but definitely will not be able to check the net daily while there.
My boys seem to be getting excited now. Matty uploaded music onto all our MP3 for us. And Aaron added little Chinese knots on our luggage to help identify them as they shoot down from the luggage carousel. He’s so sweet he tried to make a “special” know for me. Here’s what he attached on my luggage.
Isn’t that sweet? Well, sweet as it was, I had to tell him that it was too long, and if he could shorten it a tad so that it wouldn’t get caught and in people’s way. So here is his second version.
Much more practical, but still sweet. I just love my boys!
Okay, that’s it. We leave in about an hour, so better shut down the computer and make do my last minute rounds to see that all is taken care of here.
Toodles for now! I’ll try to say hello from the Philippines, if I can!
Marlakins 
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01.14.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:17 pm by Administrator
Okay, I admit that I’m not that up with the stars these days. However, I do know who Antonio Banderas is. Eh, who doesn’t? He’s that handsome Zoro with the sexy Spanish accent. Subsequent movies showed that he can also dance, but just recently I stumbled upon him on YouTube and found out that he can sing, too! Oye! Check it out!
Yeah, yeah, this is old news, apparently; but new to me! While he’s not quite Michael Crawford, he’s actually pretty good! And of course, Sarah Brightman is still fantastic. About twenty years ago, I saw the Phantom of the Opera here in Los Angeles. Gee, it’s been a while, but I think it was at the Mark Taper Forum. Unfortunately, the night we saw it, Sarah Brightman was not performing, but rather her understudy. She was very good, too, but still I wished Brightman was there. Likely, Crawford was there, and wow, what a treat! His voice is out of this world. And now seeing Brightman here and other videos, I sure wish I had seen her in person. What a magnificent voice she has!
Here’s another example of Brightman’s amazing voice singing Time to Say Goodbye with Andrea Bocelli. Her singing is so smooth and clear and graceful. She reaches all her notes so effortlessly. The two of them sound so good together. Absolutely breathtaking!
My, if I had a voice like her, I’d be singing all the time! Ha! But I don’t sing. . . perhaps that tells you something, ha!
Okay, better get back to work here. I’m still struggling to finish Matty’s blanket before we leave this Friday. Will I make it? It looks like I still have a chance, but better get my butt working, otherwise I won’t make it. I’ve made up my mind to finish this blanket before we leave, and so I’m racing with myself.
Toodles!
Marlakins
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01.12.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:15 am by Administrator
Years ago I remember being told that a satisfied customer is likely to tell about five people about the good service he received, while a dis-satisfied customer is likely to tell ten people about the bad service he received. I thought that it was funny how people are that we are more likely to be more driven by dis-satisfaction than satisfaction. At least that’s what the illustration showed me that an angry customer will exert more effort than a happy one. What I have noticed is that even little things affect us from day to day, so why not be kind to others because sometimes just a smile from someone helps to make us feel better, if for no other reason.
But back to what made me think of customer service. As some people know, my hard drive crashed a few months back, and I lost lots of stuff, including a lot of music. However, I recently found that iTunes keeps track of our purchases, and so I wrote to them and they let me re-download all the songs that I had purchased for the past couple years for free! Oye! What good service! So now most of my music has been restored on my computer, and I am happy as a clam. For their kind and swift service, I wanted to give a two thumbs up for iTunes!
And since I was in the music mood, I stumbled across one of Andrea Bocelli’s performances on YouTube with Elisa singing La Voce Del Silenzio. I just love this rendition, so wanted to share it here.
I know it’s not even sung in English, so I have no idea what they’re singing about, but it just sounds so nice to me. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Marlakins
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01.11.09
Posted in Book Reviews, Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, Treatment Decisions, Uncategorized at 1:37 am by Administrator
Yesterday I checked out a small book called Flax Oil as a True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer and Other Diseases by Dr. Johanna Budwig. Amongst the alternative treatment advocates, Budwig is known for the flax oil and cottage cheese mixture to treat diseases such as cancer. I had read about her years ago, but since I was already trying other healing modalities, outside of the basics, I didn’t spend much time learning about Budwig and her theories. More recently I was encouraged to revisit Budwig’s flax oil and cottage cheese mixture as I had been experiencing very dry skin and started using flax and borage oil. I felt that the oils were helping me and it made me wonder if I should try adding the cottage cheese. Co-incidently, Patti wrote and asked my opinion about Budwig’s diet around the same time and mentioned of a man whose liver cancer appears to be improving using the flax oil cottage cheese mixture. In addition, my father’s myeloma took a big leap, and so I felt more compelled to revisit Budwig’s diet again.
Upon searching the net, I found that the basic idea of the flax oil and cottage cheese mixture was to make the omega 3s in the oil water soluble, and thus more usable to the body. Just taking the oil alone apparently is not used as efficiently by the body. I found in Budwig’s book that it is the cysteine in the cottage cheese that makes the oil water soluble. By the way, the reason I decided to check out one of her books is because I found that the “recipe” for the flax/cottage cheese mixture was not all the same on the net. I wanted to know what Budwig’s actual recommendation was rather than what was everyone else’s modifications. And being that Budwig wrote in German, I didn’t have a good selection to choose from in English but Flax Oil as a True Aid Against Arthritis, Heart Infarction, Cancer and Other Diseases. As it turns out, this little book is a transcript of three of her public presentations. So the amount of information is limited.
Although Budwig’s presentations were relatively short, I am glad that I read them as there was information in there that I did not find highlighted much on the net regarding her views. I had known from the net that along with the flax/cottage cheese mixture, Budwig recommended a vegetarian diet. I also knew that she was against drugs, chemos, radiation, and even supplements. For that view, she did resonate well with me. She also advocated avoiding preservatives, solidified and damaged fats such as hydrolyzed oils, and pesticides as she felt that these things interfered with the body’s fat and protein bonds which is essential to proper cellular functioning. What her book explained much better than what I found on the net was the relationship of the sun and her theory of healing. I had read Kime’s book, Sunlight, so really appreciate Budwig’s insight regarding sunlight, a view which I didn’t not read in Kime’s book. That is, Budwig felt that the electrons stored in our bodies helped to attract photons from the sun. We need good electrons in our bodies such as comes through electron-rich foods and oils such as flax oil to better utilize the photons from the sun, otherwise the sun can be harmful to us. This reminds me of Kime’s book wherein he deals with the common belief that the sun causes cancer. According to the study he cites, the sun only caused cancer in the subjects who were low in antioxidants. Those who had good levels of antioxidants actually “benefitted” from exposure to sun. Budwig’s view was that if we did not have sufficient electrons, then we would not be able to absorb enough photons from the sun and that when we burned during sun exposure, it indicates that we don’t have enough electrons to absorb the sun’s rays safely. Her’s a quote from her book regarding that,
“The living body can only take in and store solar electrons through resonance absorption. To absorb the electrons into the living body, we must already have in the body’s electron system either the same wavelength or a multiplicity of wavelengths. Thus, the human who eats refined foodstuffs or food which lacks electrons, not only cuts off his oxygen enough to suffocate himself, he also cuts himself off from the effects of the sun. When such people cover their skin with a layer of paraffin as sun protection oil, and then lie in the sun, the burn damage is very great, because the electrons, which cannot be stored, and the electron-rich-biological molecule, are missing. It has been proved that all the poisons which affect the action of enzymes, including paraffin and the benzopyrin in cigarettes, have an irritative effect on the entire system of electron absorption, storage and further conduction.”
From that I’m think Budwig is stating that the electrons in our bodies attract the energy from the sun. Without the appropriate electrons we would not attract the energy from the sun, and thus not obtain the full benefits the sun offers to our health. Since flax oil is rich in electrons (according the Budwig), it works synergistically with the energy from the sun by attracting the sun’s photons. It appears to me that Budwig felt that we obtain energy from the sun, and that is why all the electron-photon storage is so important. This passage from her bood seems to sum it up.
“. . . We can store the sun’s energy and the living body is then in a position to summon, depending on the situation, energy from this storage depot of electrons. When these depots are empty, the person then feels irritable, tired, and his limbs become heavy. But we are able to replenish these storage depots by taking in electron-rich seed oils. These are set to receive solar energy.”
In addition to attracting protons, electrons are important because they have a great affinity to oxygen, which stimulates our breathing and our entire being. Kime wrote in his book, Sunlight many other benefits of the sun, provided you’re nourished well enough to benefit from the sun. Such benefits of the sun are conversion of cholesterol to vit D and other hormonal stimulation. John Ott, also wrote several books documenting his observations of the benefits of the sun to man and other living organisms including animals and plants. He stumbled upon the effects of lighting from his hobby of time-lapsed photography. He noticed that plants grew differently depending upon whether certain light waves were filtered or not. He later concluded after many experiments and studies that full-spectrum lighting is the only beneficial lighting to our health. He even advocated not wearing any eyeglasses as that inhibited the full benefits of the sun through the eyes.
All this time I had no idea how important Budwig felt the sun was to our health. So this is another aspect that I agree on with her. Budwig stated that,
“According to the computael findings of those modern physicists, the quantum biologists, there is no entity in nature, in life, which as a higher concentration of solar electrons than man. It then folows that man has a true rapport with sunlight. . .”
“The electrons in our food serve as the resonance system for the sun’s energy.”
If Budwig is correct, then it stands to reason that we should be careful to put electron-rich foods into our bodies, and not dead foods devoid of nutrition. While I have read about the importance of the sun to our health, I had no idea that Budwig also felt strongly about it and is part of her healing modality aside from her flax oil and cottage cheese mixture.
Okay, so now that I’ve got a “little” better understanding of Budwig’s ideas, I have already tried the flax oil and cottage cheese mixture, as have my parents. We started yesterday. HOWEVER, today I noticed on the cottage cheese list of ingredients that it has “citric acid.” Cripes. I’m trying to improve my health, not start taking excitotoxins. . . Whole Foods only had two selections for organic cottage cheese and I bought one of each (Horizon and Clover). Now I notice that both has citric acid as an ingredient. I’m gonna have to find another brand that doesn’t have citric acid in it or learn how to make my own cottage cheese. At any rate, I hope we start noticing some benefits soon.
Marlakins
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01.05.09
Posted in Book Reviews, Historical Trivia, History, Movie commentary, Uncategorized at 8:41 pm by Administrator
So five days into the new year, and I still feel like I’m scrambling to get organized. . . Hence no blog entries, heheh. Maybe part of it has to do with my urge to rearrange some of the furniture in the house. While shuffling furniture can be time consuming, and it does tend to make a mess for a while, it also ends up quite nice as all the dust bunnies get uncovered and swept away and lost things end up un-lost. Ah, and isn’t that a refreshing feeling to sit in a freshly cleaned room? Tomorrow I think I’ll work on getting the Christmas lights down. But I digress. . . There were several things I thought to blog about, but never got around to doing it. We did some movie marathons, so I could have played Siskel and Ebert for several movies. We watched Kung Fu Panda, Hancock, Get Smart, The Happening just to name a few. As the new year rolled in, I thought of my friend’s hometown tradition of jumping into their bay on the first of the year, so that reminded me of more of the pictures I took at the Isle of Man and London that I still haven’t finished posting up, and we’re supposed to be taking a trip in a couple weeks. With all the turmoil going on in Gaza and other parts of the world, I certainly had some thoughts on those, too. But then the boys and I just finished reading Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and I really appreciated her insight to the nature of man and the structure of our society. In particular, American society and Christian values. I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin in high school, but re-read it again with the boys recently. Yes they are old enough to read on their own, but I like to read as a family sometimes, and it also helps to stir up more thought and discussion about things like morality, customs and values, history, etc.
I’m assuming everyone is familiar with Uncle Tom’s Cabin as I believe it is considered one of the American Classics we all were required to read in high school. If not, very briefly, the story was written in 1852 when slavery in the United States was still legal in the south. The star of the story is Uncle Tom, but through his travails, we see the lives of those around him and how slavery affected them all; slaves, slave masters, and non-slave owners alike. Stowe gives insight to the viewpoints of each character. At the very end of the book Chapter 45 titled “Concluding Remarks” deals with the veracity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Apparently, after it was written, Stowe received many letters inquiring as to whether the story of Uncle Tom was real. The answer to that was,
“The separate incidents that compose the narrative are, to a very great extent, authentic, occurring, many of them, either under her [Stowe's] own observation, or that of her personal friends. She or her friends have observed characters the counterpart of almost all that are here introduced; and many of the sayings are word for word as heard herself, or reported to her.”
Being that the most prominent way slaves were treated in “my” mind were images taken from the movie “Roots,” Uncle Tom’s Cabin showed a bit of the different ways slaves were “managed” than I had realized as well as philosophical views from those who approved of slavery vs. those who did not approve of slavery. I particularly appreciated the views of Augustine St. Clare and his cousin Miss Ophelia. While I don’t want to spend too much time on the various view points, one discussion did interest me. In the story St. Clare is a southerner who owned many slaves, while his cousin Miss Ophelia was a northerner who did not agree with slavery. She came to live with him to help manage his estate, and while there her interactions with St. Clare expose one of the troubles of the aboliting slavery. In particular, now that slavery was legal and fully established into society, what was to be done now? It’s easy to just complain that certain things are wrong and look down on those perpetrating the acts. But it’s generally not as easy to “fix” as one might think. St. Clare fully saw the injustice and cruelty of slavery, but he pointed out that just abolishing slavery would not solve the huge problem that the slave trade produced, that is, if all the slaves were freed, who would help them get on their feet? How would they live and get education? Many of them were kept low and uneducated for the very purpose of dominating over them. Even the Christians, according to St. Clare, were not willing to take up the cross to help these slaves themselves. Sure they were willing to send off a few missionaries to convert the heathen Africans, but were they willing to take in and help a slave in their own home? As it turned out, Miss Ophelia was just the type of person St. Clare was alluding to of those who speak out against injustices such as slavery, yet did not want to get their hands dirty with the work required to fix the problem. She later changes from that position and succeeds in helping Topsy. It’s easier to send out a missionary or two to do the work that most people are unwilling or even detest doing. As history has shown us, St. Clare was right to the degree that even after slavery was abolished in the United States, prejudice made it very difficult for the negro to succeed in American society. Many schools did not allow black students, various employers did not hire black employees, even the various associations did not allow blacks such as the American Medical Association. I’ve seen pictures of separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites. Different restrooms were built for black and whites, and even designated seats at the back of the buses for blacks. Rosa Parks went down in history books as she broke the rules by defying the rule for a black woman such as she to sit in the back of the bus, which helped shape the future of blacks in America. Even 50 years after the abolition of slavery, blood banks kept black blood separated from white blood, and it even became an issue in the military for blood transfusions for the soldiers on the battlefields. It was a long hard road taken by America that resulted from their early acceptance of the slave trade. And today, about 150 years after the abolition of slavery through the 13th Amendment, the first black President was finally elected. (Course I realize there are those who think that Obama isn’t even black, but rather Arab; but for all practical purposes, he is accepted as a half black man from a white mother and a Kenyan father, which would commonly be known as mulatto). By the way, I do find it odd how if a person has any percentage of black, they are generally considered black rather than their white bloodline. I guess it must have something to do with “purity.” A bit of an arrogant concept, but there you have it. I found recently that there’s a term called “blasian.” I found it while looking up “quadroon,” which is the term for a mixed black and Latin American. Apparently, the name for a mixed Afro-Asian is called a blasian. Took me 44 years to learn that, ha!
Okay, well I better wrap this up soon as I still need to finish knitting Matty’s blanket. . . but I had to mention something else I learned just recently, and that is regarding Alex Haley’s story Roots. Since the boys and I were reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I thought they might be interested to watch the movie “Roots” with the all-famous Kunta Kinte and the Lord Legioner. Brian reminded me that books are better to read as movies always adulterate the stories. So I did a Google online, and what did I find? A link to an article called, “The Celebrated ‘Roots’ of a Lie.” It turns out that Alex Haley’s book Roots was a fraud! Oh my! And all these years I thought it was based on fact! Apparently, Haley “plagiarized” from a “white” author named Hal Courlander. Courlander’s book was called, “The African” published in 1967. I checked my library catalog and now have it on hold, heheheh. Anyway, it is said that Courlander took Haley to court over the matter, and Haley admitted he plagiarized from Courlander’s book. The case was settled out of court with a hefty settlement given to Courlander. What gets me is that this apparently was done quietly, and people like me never heard that Roots was all bogus! Well, I guess it’s a good way to start the year. . . be cautious of what you believe. Search it out if you really want to know the truth of things.
Happy New Year!
Marlakins
Follow Up April 29, 2009:
I have since read Hal Courlander’s book, The African, and I’m currently reading Alex Haley’s, Roots. My original intent was to find out if Haley really did plagiarized from Courlander. While I’m still not finished reading Roots, I am currently at chapter 105, page 495. The book is 587 pages long. So far, I find that Haley’s book, Roots, is quite different from Courlander’s, The African. I don’t see much if any out right plagiarizism so far. If anything, the closest to plagiarism might be the portion of the ship ride from Africa to America. There were “similar” scenarios like how the Africans were communicating with one another as they lay chained next to one another in the cargo hold. Other than the ship transport portion, which is really a very small portion of the whole book of Roots, I am really reluctant to say that Haley “plagiarized” from Courlander. I suppose I could re-check out Courlander’s book and read them side by side at those sections, but really both books are very different. When I finish reading the whole of Roots, I think I will make another post in case there are any other areas of the book that seem similar to Courlander’s. But again, these books are pretty different, and to call Roots a “fraud” based on the idea that Haley plagiarized is out of line as far as I’m concerned. I would definitely say that a lot of it may have been embellished as I don’t think it’s likely that all the details of Kunta’s “thoughts” and feelings as well as all the other characters thoughts and feelings were likely conveyed through the two hundred years. So, my opinion is that Roots could be classified as a historical fiction. The characters may have really existed, but I’m not sure all the small details are true to life.
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