HOW CAN PEOPLE SEE THE SAME THING SO DIFFERENTLY?

A Frenchwoman admitted she had eight babies whom she smothered at birth.  She is not the first woman tro admit to such a crime.  She is extremely obese, so her husband hadn't even suspected she was pregnant.  To our American society, for the most part, people will hear this as a horrifying story.  However, life was not always with similar values.  In the mountains of Greece, 130 years ago, there were no hospitals nor way to care for a crippled or severely defective infant. Such infants were tossed down a mountain side by ther mother, or midwife who might have been assisting.  It was not regarded as a criminal act but an act of kindness and a family survival necessity.  This Frenchwoman will no doubt spend the rest of her life in jail.  See details.

MSNBC has a habit of putting on people with totally opposite political views.  Sometimes it lacks interest as the Hannitty and Colmes duo did a few years ago on Fox News.  Whereas the Democrats say they want to help the people and are referring to the average American of the lower or middle class; the Republicans say they want to help the people but work for the top 2%, the richest class in America.

 

Anti-abortionists say they value life and want to protect it but they really only try to proptect the fetus and seem not to have interest in the living child after birth.

 

There are those who look down on others who are not involved with organized religion, as they violate the ten commandments and the Golden Rule, while those professing no allegiance to the Gods of others practice integrity, morality, and live by the Golden Rule.

 

If the reader was expecting an answer to my rhetorical question, I apologize.  It still boggles my mind that two people can look at the same action, scenario, speech, oral or written words, facial  expressions, or much more and see and interpret meaning 180 degrees in an opposite direction.

 

Obama made a comment today in a speech in which he noted that the media seemed only interested in creating a conflict.  The media disagrees.as they gaze adoringly at themselves through their amusement park mirrors.  Republicans claim they are looking for bipartisanship though they also say they want to cause Obama to fail.  What commitment does that imply? 

 

How can those below average in intelligence even hope to understand how to interpret the mixed, hypocritical messages in which much of the world speaks these days?

WHEN DID EVERYTHING RELATING TO PEOPLES' WELFARE BECOME SOMEONE'S GAME?

Rove-style  lies are used throughout the world.  The propaganda being spread in Afghanistan is that the Americans are purposely targeting civilians to be killed.  In this war of political mediation and diplomacy, this is neither truth nor a message that we can tolerate.  At this time we need the cooperation of the Afghani citizens.  However, with clear Mafia-like threats,  people are afraid to be seen as informants.  It is not safe to seem on the side of the Americans.  This is crippling efforts to be helpful rather than harmful in Afghanistan. 

The Tea Party is also full of obfuscations and distortions and have been since their inception.  They spread the threat of death panels  in health care, advertise widely that Obama is not a US citizen, foster all those who deny 9/11 as having been created by Al  Qaeda, and try to influence those most easily influenced in the country....those who don't question what they hear if it is said convincingly to them either from con artists, convincing liars, or religious phonys.

Those who speak loudly may believe  in what they are saying but it may be based on data as misleading as the edited down tape of Sherrod.  When people are given half truths, the sheep behave as the Secretary of Agriculture did, with knee-jerk reactions.  While the TV show, The View, is a program that I do not watch, I applaud that Pre4sdient Obama agreed to be a guest.  The audience he will reach on that show will be more important to his words than the few who will hear no more of what he actually says and believes than the sound bites which the media shows on the brief news programs many of them usually watch. Any means he can get his word out to the people directly, as he did while campaigning, is to be lauded.

Since the handlers of profile for each party do not play by the same game rules, then neither party can play the political game with proper manners.  Right now we are not fighting to elect a candidate, we are fighting for the continued life of the country and the reasons why it exists since it was founded.  We must fight to preserve the essence of the Constitution which guides us and modify it only to make it relevant to this century if it is ever amended..

MURPHY'S LAW RULES AGAIN

Murphy's talent knows no boundaries.  Just when I think nothing else can go wrong, something does.  Since I do not feel important enough to think there is a God who would do me ill, I have to look at the real world and figure the odds.  My life philosophy runs on the law of averages.  When I was terrified of taking my first overseas flight and explained to friends it was because there had been two major plane crashes in the past two weeks, they showed me that only improved my chances of a safe flight.  Since my flight was without trauma, they were obviously correct.
 
Usually, tragedies strike in 3s, Im told.  Now I have learned it is an endless loop of multiples of three.  It  used to be that people believed death comes in 3s.  That it is not only people weho die, it never occurred to me that death would be the electrical supply to a refrigerator and freezer and, like a fog, it can come in on little cat feet, not discovered until several days later since I hadf not reason to check.  When my husband, the engineer, was alive I never had to think about those things.  All I had to do was say, "Jerry, fix it."; no longer an option.

Though almost every area of my life was touched, I will comment on only one...the electrical problem.   A warning for those, like myself, who never had to think about maintenance problems in the past.  Find out how everything works in the house, especially the shut-off valve to the toilet.  That is a flood you will never want to have to clean up.  Likewise, know where the electrical control panel lives.  Unfortunately, the particular circuit in question was unmarked on mine...at least to my eyes (though the electrician, who is at least seven feet tall, found it within seconds).

My problem, not knowing how many appliances came off this one circuit was that two dehumidifiers, a refrigerator and a full stand-up freezer and an iron were all pulling their load.  The first death in this chronicle was that the iron died.  I had not imagined that replacing an iron with a fancier one would cause the whole circuit to force the breaker.  Being alone in the house I could not check the breakers easily as this one had no lights on it.  You, who may be more knowledgable might just say I should feel happy about not having a fire, thus losingt the whole house.  At the moment I am having a difficult time counting blessings in any of this, though I might, someday twenty or thirty years from now, look back and say, "Gee, I was lucky that horrible week of one disaster after another, wasn't as bad as it could have been.!"  I'm not there yet.

The problem was remedied with panic, frustration, time and money, as so many problems are.  New circuits will be created (the control box still has some free panels).  The money outlay is still to be determined.  Since my perpetual diet is still in existence, I refuse to think about the food I am having to toss and rationalize that if I had to freeze it, it is probably something I'm not eating these days anyway.

Buy stock in denial and rationalization, their value will never decrease.
 

OUR CONSTITUTION IS BEING THREATENED

While I have lived through many years of changing Presidents, political parties, and the displeasure of voters, I cannot recall in my lifetime the loud battle cry to change the basics of our Constitution giving all citizens equal rights.

REASON.com recently had an excellent article why Sarah Palin, who professes to be a deeply rep;igious person herself, would wish to see the religious rights of others curtailed.  By fighting against a Mosque being built in the area of Ground Zero (actually a couple of blocks away, as I understand it) she is lumping ALL Muslims as though they were the ones perpetrating the tragic events of 9/11.  It seems most un-Christian of her, which sounds quite hypocritical of her.

I urge my readers to read or listen (by clicking on the right arrow) at this link.

For a more knee-jerk reaction, the NY Daily News, provided one.  Check this out by clicking here.

RECYCLING HUMANS

For years mankind has dreamed of emulating some other species.  Rejuvenation of appendages has long been a dream.  A surgeon normally takes out a longer section of vein than is needed for a heart bypass. The Bristol team (research, by Paolo Madeddu, Professor of Experimental Cardiovascluar Medicine and his team in the Bristol Heart Institute (BHI) at the University of Bristol, is published in the journal Circulation.) successfully isolated stem cells from leftover veins that patients had agreed to donate. In tests in mice, the cells proved able to stimulate new blood vessels to grow into injured leg muscles. Professor Madeddu and his team are now beginning to investigate whether the cells can help the heart to recover from a heart attack.

However, the stem cell usage remains pretty much in the research field with a lot of 'if'.  Click here.

Unfortunately, from the year 2000 to 2008, GW Bush, President of the United States, chose to put the views of religious zealots before scientific study so that there was essentially a moratorium on productive research, slowing the field down for those years.  Additionally, many top scientists moved out of the United States to places where they could continue their research, further slowing down gains here.

"Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director of the BHF, said: "Repairing a damaged heart is the holy grail for heart patients. The discovery that cells taken from patients' own blood vessels may be able to stimulate new blood vessels to grow in damaged tissues is a very encouraging and important advance. It brings the possibility of 'cell therapy' for damaged hearts one step closer and, importantly, if the chemical messages produced by the cells can be identified, it is possible that drugs could be developed to achieve the same end."
To read the article from which this was extracted,  click here

Some of you reading this blog may even live long enough to be recipients of what is being learned...others of us will likely not.

LIFE CHANGES FASTER THAN WE DO

Living in today's world for people who don't like change is getting impossibly difficult.  There was a time, only a relatively few years ago when life could be lived without adjustment to too much change in one's life.  Religious sects like the Shakers lived simply but died out when they refused to allow sexuality even for procreation.  Religious practices are getting harder and harder to maintain when one moves elsewhere in the world where they are not supported as with Muslim women who want to cover themselves totally.  When Florida refused to issue a driver's license to a woman who would not be recognized on her driver's license, some people were shocked. In France, the practice of covering one's self is now forbidden.  If you are interested in learning more about the 'hijab', click here.  Covering up is not mandatory but a choice as are practices of walking, not riding, on the Sabbath for Orthodox Jews.

Many do not want their lives cluttered with computers, TV, microwaves and other bits of technology so crucial to others.  Nevertheless, choosing the 'simpler' life style may be getting more and more difficult rather than simple.  There are many things that can't be done without technology.  People have to pay more (such as the purchase of plane tickets) without doing it using a computer.  Even paying some bills by phone can no longer be done without an extra charge.

In addition to cost, all that one might need to live comfortably may no longer be within one's physical range.  Those without cable TV will no longer be able to absorb a sense of the world of politics, changes in laws, availability to update  information and easily have access to their own medical records.  I used to think those limitations, self-imposed, were only by old people but have found many people (still in their fifties or less) who do not own computers nor know how to use them.

One can only wonder what will happen to people who cannot adapt to current life.  Today we feel the difficulties in getting laws changed to fit the world and needs of today.  Resistance can be so powerful as to hurt many...we all saw this resistance to the Health Care Bill being passed.  How long can we who wish change be held back by those who fear it and refuse it?