BEING USED BY OTHERS

Recently I was asked how you can prevent yourself from being used by friends and others. After much thought, I realized you can't always prevent this from happening, but once you see that it is, you can easily stop it.

You can't know someone will manipulate and use you until it is happening, or if you knew someone's reputation for this before, you should be well warned and defensively cautious and the responsibility then totally yours. It is you who decides just how much you wish to do for another; it has nothing to do with how much they wheedle, plead, or manipulate. Whether you say yes or agree is always up to you unless there is some sort of blackmail going on which puts you into a bind to keep you or someone else from getting hurt. Even then, you need to decide whether or not to go along with the request.

There are three ways of being used...one is as in 'usury' (an unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest). Credit cards and loan sharks do this but, again, most of us have a choice whether we wish to participate. If there are no other options open, you may be forced to be used. The second is as in 'abused' (to put to a wrong or improper use, to maltreat). This is a power struggle in which one may be the weaker and the loser. Employers, parents, sexual predators, teachers, or anyone in higher authority may be the abuser...physically, emotionally, financially or otherwise. There are ways to stop the abuse but usually one has to understand they are being abused, which surprisingly the victim does not always realize. The third is as in 'misused' (to use incorrectly, misapply or mistreat). If you allow yourself to be in a situation where the rules and boundaries are not clear, you lay yourself open to result in being mistreated. You are responsible for giving a doctor correct information or you cannot claim mistreatment, as an example.

The bottom line in any abuse (other than with children who might not be able to know better or have no control over a situation, or special needs children who may be physically or mentally challenged and who do not have coping skills). It is incumbent on us all to be our own advocates, to ask for help when we need it, and to not believe, mistakenly, that we will be loved if we do everything others ask of us.
Setting your own boundaries doesn't make manipulators happy but it will spare you.

A normal give in take in healthy relationships is not misuse. We all use others but there should always be a give and take and agreements must be consensual.

A REASON WHY WOMEN MAY LIVE LONGER THAN MEN

For years scientists and researchers have claimed that women live longer because their life is easier and they are less stressed than men...or similar rationalizations. Now researchers believe that men, through genes passed only by sperm, therefore from the father's side, have a built in gene signal that shortens their life as compared to women.

"Scientists working on mice have highlighted a specific gene that, although carried by both sexes, appears to be active only in males. They believe it allows males to grow bigger bodies - but at the expense of their longevity." For the complete article, click here. Obviously, as with most research, longevity is determined by many variables. People die from illnesses, accidents, life style poor choices, toxin ingestion, violence, suicide, homicide, and many factors which have nothing to do with genes. However, it would be interesting to continue to follow this research.
A period life table is what insurance companies are interested in. After all, they bet against the odds, don't they?...But they try to limit that to setting up their premiums to allow them to figure their odds most closely to be in their favor ultimately.

FACEBOOK IS INSTITUTING A NEW PRIVACY CONTROL

The Washington Post unveiled Google's plans to change the way Facebook has currently been handling what is now their 350,000,000 users. "Facebook is also going to remove regional networks entirely, largely because some of those networks (like China) consist of millions of users, which makes them useless from a privacy standpoint." For the entirety of this article, click here.

From Wikipedia: "Facebook is a global social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University.[5] The website's membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website currently has more than 350 million active users worldwide.[6]

Facebook has met with some controversy. It has been blocked intermittently in several countries including Syria,[7] China[8], Vietnam[9], and Iran.[10] It has also been banned at many places of work to discourage employees from wasting time using the service.[11] Privacy has also been an issue, and it has been compromised several times. Facebook settled a lawsuit regarding claims over source code and intellectual property.[12]

A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace.[13]"

For those of us with a little less energy to add yet another platform of communication, I (for one) await the new information on how to handle the new and improved Facebook which will reach us momentarily.

DO WE EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS WE ARE FIGHTING, OR FOR WHAT END?

After the President's speech tonight, Keith Olbermann talked to someone who was in Germany who spoke about a key issue not being addressed being the Pashtuns. I've heard the word before, was not sure of the spelling, and was surprised to learn they are the majority of people in Afghanistan. My next question was, "Is Karzai a Pastun?" Yes he is. "Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun of the Popalzai tribe, was born in the village of Karz,[1] which is located on the edge of Kandahar City in southern Afghanistan." Read the whole biography here. Like many American politicians, Karzai seems to have forgotten just whom he represents. While his reportedly crooked family is being protected, I find it hard to believe it is because they are Pashtuns and Afghani citizens rather than all the money involved for all the family...but I guess I am just a cynic.

We are, as a country, fighting the damage that is without explanation estimation. The Bush Doctrine is one of the worst possible atrocities not only let loose on the world but thought by some to be reflective of the character of the United States. It should be unacceptable anywhere that is governed with humanity and logic...which we apparently missed in the US for eight years.

The Bush Doctrine brought us to Iraq (which did not have weapons of mass destruction hanging around ready to be brought to us, nor did it have any connection to 911 or al Qaeda) and has us mired in debt, the censure of the world at large, and is finally being changed by ourt newer President whose major energies are being taken up by tryng to clean up the mess made by the last Administration (blaming GW Bush when we all know he only began to try to administrate towards the end of his presidency, having spent the most of his term vacationing, blustering and bragging while Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al were busy bringing the country to an almost terminal illness.

Obama is left trying to put out a fire, started with a huge match and left to burn for eight years or more, with a garden hose. Oh well, we might get lucky and only lose a few more thousand of our military forces but we will try to pretend we have won something which has no gold ring to grab to get there.

IT'S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

President Obama has pledged 30,000 more troops for Afghanistan. For the past eight years we have heard more and more troops being deployed, more deaths, more traumatic brain injuries, more limbs blown off, blindness, and all sorts of horrible conditions that would not have survived in previous wars.

We hear the lies of the fear-mongers and 'Chicken Littles', which so many foolish people believe. It amazes me how little people are truly informed and how many think they are informed because their lying sources tell them 'we are the truth'. Old people confuse threats that 'they' are out to get rid of old people. There are too many with companies cutting, rather than raising, COLAs for their pensioners. Ah, that ubiquitous 'they', not easily answered when questioned closely to be defined.

Sometimes I wish I truly believed in a Heaven and Hell in the afterlife...I could dream that, at last, I would be somewhere among the 'good' people. However, those whom I see as 'good' are seen as 'bad' by others. Did Solomon train St. Peter for the job> It will truly take a remarkable committee by God to make all those judgments, will it not? Heaven must have to have an organizational manager 24/7 as people pour in through the Gates. Did God only decide to have a Heaven after Christianity began? Would he have considered the first humans, native Heavenites? Are they the only ones allowed to build gambling casinos? Would the Neanderthals have been considered human enough? Do modern inventions make it to Heaven or do dead inventors have to work to build them there? Does Heaven have entertainment centers, TV, clubs, parties? What is the entertainment there? If you have been good in your life on earth, but uneducated, do they have schools in Heaven? Do people have to eat in Heaven? If so, who does the cooking and cleaning there? Is there sex in Heaven for those who didn't have enough on Earth? Is Heaven for earthlings only or will there be beings from other planets there. If there is a God, is he for all planet life or only Earth?

Such are the many questions I ask to which I get no answers. Even though Ministers claim to speak with God, they can't ask him these sorts of questions, apparently, since the Bible is God's word and he didn't start speaking much to man until after his son was killed and resurrected. After all the begats and story about two people starting the human line, there don't seem to have been historians prior to that except those who drew on cave walls and that hardly gives word to my questioning. It seems those cave drawings were more memos like, "Dear, I took the horse and went for a ride." Or it might have been a diary entry, "On my way back to the cave I was ambushed and killed a few neighbors."

If you get to see all your loved ones in Heaven, then Heaven must be a deja vu experience right? Do residents find old friends on something like a Heavenly Facebook. Do they have Heavenly computers? Are the doomed souls part of the space debris....gosh, I really have to stop this. I can't even find the answers on Google...most frustrating!

THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY

Most of the people (many unfortunately on the media where this should not happen) speculate out loud as though they are speaking facts...at least, that is how they are often heard. I am a great fan of Tiger Woods, the golfer; I have no interest in looking through keyholes or intruding into his personal life.

It isn't that I am without understanding as to why people like to read People Magazine or live vicariously though their latched onto idols. What escapes me is that they have been taught by the moneymaking media that they have a right to know all the intimate details of anyone who appears before the public in movies, politics, sports or otherwise. Why should they have any more right to know about someone's personal life just because their profession is public. This is a hype made possible by the profiters of the intrusive tactics of the Paparazzi and others who feed to gossip magazines. Yet if you told the readers of such that they are just nosy gossips who would be angry if they were exposed in the same fashion, they would probably rationalize that it would be different. But it really isn't. Movie stars have learned (or been told ) to accept the intrusions as a part of their job...but should it be?

Unless I am mistaken, 'the right to know' was intended to speak to politics and government and is intended to allow people to be informed about things that directly touch their lives. Why Tiger Woods had an accident in his car does not directly effect my life. Nor do the messy divorces, interaction with law enforcement, unless they are political figures or in some way would be performing a direct service to me such as surgery, etc.) effect my life in any way.

At this point, any suggestions in cleaning up society would cost some people jobs. Should that stop us from trying to make our society a better place in which to live? a safer place, a more private place where it is appropriate? For someone else's view on the subject, click here.

THE WINSOR MUSIC CHAMBER SERIES

Tonight a friend talked me into into gnawing off the virtual restraints on my wrists and crawling out of my cage to go to a concert. It was a Winsor Music Series Chamber Series concert and an auditory delight. Having gone to Boston Symphony for the past five years to hear music in a concert hall, for the most part, it was wonderful to realize that Chamber Music can be so ear caressing. Peggy Pearson is the Artistic Director and oboist, Olympic quality.

This program was advertised as a Young Artists Program and renewed my awe in young musicians. Sonata in F major for Cello and Piano, Op. 99 was played pianist Eliko Akahori with Rafael Popper-Keizer on cello. The next offering was a John Harbison Chorale Cantata (talk by the composer) and preceded by a Bach Chorale he had rewritten.

However, the last number, Concerto for Oboe, Violin and Strings in C minor, bwv 1060 by Bach was followed with a standing ovation and several curtain calls. The oboist was Peggy Pearson who played flawlessly as one might have expected with her experience and proficiency. However, the greatest surprise was to see a tiny, 12 year old Japanese girl. Yuki Beppu, who played violin extraordinarily beautifully. She had a child's anxious look towards someone in the back of the hall and the most beatific smile when she must have understood how well she was being received. This made being there worth it all on a chilly night! None of those body language signals come through on CDs.... Lest one think this was her debut...not so! She has played with Yo-Yo Ma (2007) and Governor Deval Patrick's Inauguration, as well as having won many competitions and awards.

For more of Yuki's story, http://www.abcsofstrings.com/beppu.html.