Buddhist blessing

Just as the soft rains fill the streams,
pour into the rivers, and join together in the oceans,
so may the power of every moment of your goodness
flow forth to awaken and heal all beings–
those here now, those gone before, those yet to come.

By the power of every moment of your goodness,
may your heart’s wishes be soon fulfilled
as completely shining as the bright full moon,
as magically as by a wish-fulfilling gem.

By the power of every moment of your goodness,
may all dangers be averted and all disease be gone.
May no obstacle come across your way.
May you enjoy fulfillment and long life.

For all in whose heart dwells respect,
who follow the wisdom and compassion, of the Way,
may your life prosper in the four blessings
of old age, beauty, happiness and strength.

Crazy for God...

If Jesus were alive today, he would be a Socialist, a Green, or possibly a Democrat (I say possibly, because so many Democrats sell out to lobbyists and corporate interests), but he would definitely not be a neo-conservative Republican nor would be be an Evangelical. He would probably equate the Evangelicals with the Scribes, the Pharisees and the money changers that he threw out of the temple. He would call them hypocrites for supporting the war in Iraq and torture of other human beings, while at the same time taking a "pro-life" anti-abortion stance.

The Evangelicals were so blind during the GWB "administration". All they chose to see was that GWB said that he was "saved", and they refused to look at all the many evils that he wrought during his eight years of residency. I have asked, "would Jesus drop bombs on people? would he start a war?" and they have no answer. They don't see any conflict with their supposed faith and "saved" status that for them the value of American lives is more important than cruelty, torture, and dropping bombs on other human beings.

I am intolerant of intolerance, which is something I guess I have to work on, and in the end I think it's not so important what we believe or what we say we believe, but how we behave and how we all treat each other. It doesn't really matter to me that someone thinks I will end up in hell because I believe differently than they do, however, I REALLY don't want to discuss it with them - my life and what I believe and my relationship to God/the Universe/All That Is is not their business! An individual's relationship with God/the Universe/All That Is is a private matter and not the business of any other individual.

I pretty much agree with everything in this video. I think the people who think the world started 6,500 years ago are living in LaLa Land. I think the people who couldn't see GWB for what he was were blind. I cannot bear to listen to people who argue that because the Bible says that "man has dominion over all the earth" we should drill for oil in the Arctic wilderness instead of building smaller and more fuel efficient cars and developing alternative sources of energy. To me, the earth and all its creatures, forests, and seas are sacred, so to be in favor of destroying the artic wilderness for oil is equivalent to being in favor of starting a forest fire in Muir Woods or filling the Grand Canyon with cement.

I have always feared the day that the Evangelicals would take over the country, like a worst nightmare, shades of the Inquisition all over again, getting thrown in jail for not going to church on Sunday, or even for not going to THEIR church. They are still a minority, but their rabid proselytizing is effective with people who are weak or by nature fearful. The world is a random place where bad things happen, and such a rigid belief system provides comfort and a greater sense of security to some individuals. I just hope they will never be a majority. God help the world if they ever take over.

love, longing, rejection...

Many years ago, I used to feel depressed and anxious a lot of the time. I don't know exactly what happened to me or when, but I rarely have such feelings anymore. I have come into some kind of emotional balance that I didn't intentionally seek, but that I quite like. Because I usually do feel positive and "up" most of the time, whenever I experience feelings of sadness or anxiety for no reason, it seems strange, surprising, a little confusing, and not really me. My experiences of the last few years have confirmed that these feelings usually do belong to someone else. I seem to be able to sense when someone I care about is having a hard time. I'll feel sad or anxious, and someone close to me will let me know, sometimes a day or two later, that something is or was going on with them.

Today I was sitting in my office and I started to feel anxious for no logical reason. About a half an hour later, my friend came in and told me the sad story that she found out that there is no possibility of ever being with the person she has longed to be with for the last two years. We have talked many times about her love and longing, and I shared her hopes that something would finally work out so that she could be together with the complicated man whom she finds so fascinating. She is really devastated and there is nothing I can do to help. I could only offer that I wished I had a magic wand and could make it all turn out in a better way.

It seems to be an unavoidable hazard of finally finding love that one has to go through the state of longing first. If only there was some other way! Longing, even if it does finally result in a loving relationship, can be such a waste of valuable time, because one can spend hours dreaming and worrying about the future and what might or might not be, instead of living in the now. During my sad and lonely years, I frequently found myself in a state of longing. I remember this state so well - how painful it was - and I hope I never find myself feeling this way ever again. I think that longing is really one of the worst possible emotional states to be in. One "falls in love", hopes and wishes for union, imagines all the ways in which one is not good enough for the other, is afraid to say or do anything to indicate to the other the depth of the feelings for fear of rejection, and then sometimes rashly does say or do something to disclose one's feelings and, in the worst case, actually does get rejected. It is really awful to be rejected by someone. Men are expected to make the first move in relationships, so they must experience being rejected much more often than women. I don't know how men deal with being rejected.

My daughter says I should just be there for my friend when she needs to talk and, in a little while, I should start finding fault with my friend's unattainable man - that this will help her get over him. It sounds like a plan, and since I don't have any better ideas, I will try it.

maybe it could change the world...

Today, 21 September, is the International Day of Peace, which was first celebrated in September 1982 after having been established by a United Nations resolution in 1981 to coincide with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in that year. You can learn more about the International Day of Peace at the following link:

International Day of Peace website

Even though it has been in existence since 1981, I heard about the International Day of Peace for the first time only three years ago. I think the existence of this special day has not been very well advertised, so that many people still don't know about it, which is why I am writing about it here. Spread the word to your friends and family members about the International Day of Peace so that everyone knows about this day, and will think about world peace on this day!

I think that the International Day of Peace should be declared a public holiday in every nation of the world. Since it would be non-denominational, it ought to be acceptable to every nation as a new holiday. I think it would be wonderful if everybody, everywhere could have a break from their normal routine on the International Day of Peace. I think this would have the effect of bringing peace into the minds of everyone in the world, all together, on one day, and maybe it could change the world!

parched and melting...

I am a person who really doesn't like a whole lot of uninterrupted heat and sunshine. I'm not sure why this is true of me, but I have discovered that I am not alone in this - at least two of my sisters and one of my friends feel this way, too. Perhaps the family similarity goes back to having lived in the Pacific Northwest during some of our formative years, near Seattle where it rains much of the time. My friend grew up in Minnesota which has some of the coldest winters in the USA. Anyway, I feel somehow safer when it's a little overcast and definitely much happier when the temperature is less than or equal to 70 degrees F (20 degrees C).

There has been positively too much sunshine in the last two weeks. This shouldn't have been a problem, since it cools down at night and the place where I work during the day is supposedly air-conditioned. However, some idiot in the building maintenance section at work decided that our workplace should be more green and cranked up the thermostat by a few degrees. Since this saves the company money, the managers aren't requiring that this change be rolled back. My office, which had in past years been a tolerable 72 degrees F (22 degrees C) in the summer, is now consistently 77 degrees F (25 degrees C), sometimes more, for most of the day. Sometimes it's hotter in my office than it is outside! If there were windows, I would open them! I am parched and melting and wish I could find some other place of employment. Alternatively, I would be quite happy to win the lottery and be able to retire immediately.

kinda weird...

I haven't posted anything in a while. Not a lot to say, really. Just living my life, adjusting to being back at work after a long vacation and wishing more of my vacation had been at home. There are so many relatives, and I feel it's important to visit them as much as possible during my vacations, but this means that I never get to spend enough time at home. There are so many things piling up at home that will just have to wait until I retire to get sorted out. That's just the way it is. Only four more years, though, and I'm sure the time will fly away before I know it.

I have been watching episodes of the West Wing with my significant other. We are about at the middle of Season Four. I am enjoying this series very much - it is intelligent, funny, and educational. We have also watched all of the available episodes of Bones and The Closer. I like spending time this way and, by simultaneously doing my bead crochet, I don't feel like a complete couch potato. Compared to what kind of programming was available when I was growing up, I think that modern TV provides great opportunities for learning a lot about people, personality types, and social interaction. Other favorite shows have been The Gilmore Girls, Army Wives, Friends, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Quantum Leap, Joan of Arcadia, Judging Amy, Kyle XY, Babylon 5, Heroes, and Deep Space Nine (there are probably others that I can't think of right now). We have ordered most of these series from Amazon as we don't get consistent programming in English here. Sometimes we do get various shows, but the first seasons are missed out, or they stop showing them after a season or two even though new seasons are being created and shown in the USA. There's something really nice about watching a series from beginning to end without having to wait a week in between each episode or agonize about possibly missing an installment. I love this modern world, for this and many other reasons.

On the energy medicine front, I have been collecting some crystals and I made a special place for them. I think they are really beautiful and looking at them gives me a peaceful feeling. Theoretically crystals can amplify energy work and be used for healing, but for now, I am just enjoying looking at them. When I have been crystal shopping, I have noticed that I have a sensation of electrical energy around my arms and hands when I pick up quartz crystals. I think I am very sensitive to their energy. Here is a photo of my collection:



Since the spring of this year, during the working week and about once a week, usually before noon, I have been getting a phone call on my cell phone from a withheld number where the caller just hangs up after I say, "Hello?". Today, the caller called much later in the day and played a beautiful musical chord before they hung up. It reminded me of part of a song by Jonatha Brooke called "Always". I haven't noticed anyone at work who appears to be particularly interested in me, and I don't feel threatened or frightened, I just wonder who it is. It's kinda weird.

catching up...

I apologize to my readers and to those I have been following (especially Christopher and TangoDaddy who regularly comment on my posts) for not posting anything and not keeping up with your blogs for more than a month. Living from day to day has kind of intervened, starting with an exciting energy workshop in mid-June that seriously opened my mind to new possibilities for working with people energetically. I had known that both Quantum-Touch® and Donna Eden's methods are truly excellent and now I am also seeing many other possibilities that I want to explore.

Something that is currently capturing my attention in a major way is investigating how to work with quartz crystals to amplify energy - how these crystals might be used in working with people. I have found some good books on the subject, have found some beautiful crystals that would be appropriate for applying the techniques, and only need to begin experimenting to see if there is any effect. One crystal that I bought has three little bubbles of water in it! This water must be 220 to 400 million years old!!! Doesn't that seem incredible?

In the last month I have also been travelling, to Southern California and Florida, to visit relatives, so have been enjoying spending time with everyone - doing that instead of blogging and reading blogs.

Have seen Obama addressing the nation a few times. He is very powerful in his delivery. I'm so glad we finally have an intelligent and compassionate person in charge of everything. I find it hard to listen to any news, though. I find it really biased, especially when, for example, presenters talk about health care and start laughing about and poking fun at various things that they don't agree with. I just have to turn the TV off - I don't need that kind of aggravation!

The weather in Southern California was very beautiful when I was there! I loved being close to the ocean and being able to breathe in the fresh ocean air on a daily basis. I could imagine living there someday, but I guess I will be stuck in Austria for the next few years. I do like living in Europe very much, I just miss being near the ocean.

One thing I still need to do is to find Scrapple in the supermarket. I went today and looked for it, but did not find it (Hi, MasAsHellLiberal!!! :> D ).

I hope everyone is okay. I hope to have some time to catch up with everyone in the next couple of weeks. I wish you all all the very best.

More Imogen Heap (#68)

Another richly-layered composition of Imogen Heap - I Can't Take It In, from the movie The Chronicles of Narnia...

News you might not find elsewhere...

Citizens for a Legitimate Government, which describes itself as "A multi-partisan activist group established to expose and resist US imperialism, corpora-terrorism, and the New World Order", came into being shortly after the Coup d'Etat of 2000. I became aware of them at that time, but they kind of fell off my radar until today when I was following some alternative news links. Their main page contains recent news items, with links for, among other things, archived recent news, 9/11 anomalies, the the Coup d'Etat of 2004. I found many interesting things to read in this site.

Imogen Heap

Imogen Heap is my current favorite modern musician. I consider her the most interesting composer I have come across in a really long time and one of the most technologically adept female composers since Laurie Anderson.

Imogen Heap spent a year secluded in her apartment composing her album Speak For Yourself which brought her a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 2007 (an award she should have won, in my opinion). The songs on this album are rich with layers of sound that she is amazingly able to recreate in concert using synthesizers and other devices. Her voice has an incredible range of nearly three octaves.

Her song Hide And Seek (#66), which appeared on a compilation album of songs of Grammy nominees, was my first experience of her music and an immediate favorite. Here she performs this song live:



I like nearly every song on the Speak For Yourself album, but one that I like as much or possibly more than Hide And Seek is one called Have You Got It In You (#67). Unfortunately, there does not yet exist in YouTube a live version of this song that isn't mangled in some way, so here is a rather boring to look at, but at least beautiful to listen to version from her album:

More Michael Hedges (#65)

This is probably the song most loved by Michael Hedges fans - Aerial Boundaries. It is perhaps the best example of his unique style and amazing versatility. Hope you enjoy it!

Michael Hedges

Acoustic guitar is probably my favorite insrrument in all the world, and Michael Hedges is one artist who explored the possibilities of this instrument like no one before him. Sadly, he died in a car accident in 1997 at the young age of 43. Fortunately for the world, much of his music is preserved in many wonderful albums, but who knows what might have been had he lived on.

To give you an idea of just how innovative he was, here he is performing the song "Because It's There" (#48 in my list):



Here is Part 4 of a seminar he gave in Pittsburg in 1991, where you can see some of his unusual playing techniques, and hear him talk about Bartok and the Fibonacci sequence:



Here is an interview with him:



Michael Hedges Biography

Michael Hedges website with links to Discography, Tunings, Transcriptions, and more.

Oh, my God...#64

Linda Waterfall singing "Way of Beauty".

favorite songs...

Here is a list of some modern songs that, when I heard each for the first time, my reaction was "Oh, my God! What was that song???" and I immediately wanted to hear each one again and again. As much as I prefer silence, I would still gladly listen to every one of these songs again and again. Today I added the song "La Guardia" by Tito Puente, from the album "Carnival". The numbers are just a way of keeping track of how many there are and have nothing to do with any kind of a "most to least favorite" categorization. I pretty much like all of them equally.

1. My Favorite Things - John Coltrane
2. Aspirations - Gentle Giant
3. Icarus - Paul Winter Consort
4. Bird Song - Linda Waterfall
5. Solisbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
6. Worry About You - Ivy
7. Love At The Five And Dime - Nanci Griffith
8. My Father - Judy Collins
9. Catch The Wind - Donovan
10. Excellent Birds - Laurie Anderson
11. The Flat Earth - Thomas Dolby
12. Crazy - Seal
13. Friday I'm In Love - The Cure
14. Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears
15. One Of These Things First - Nick Drake
16. Railway - Dando Shaft
17. Mama - Spice Girls
18. Message in a Bottle - The Police
19. Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits
20. Anybody Seen My Baby - Rolling Stones
21. Bo Radley - Bruce Hornsby
22. love is more thicker than forget - Jonatha Brooke
23. We Can Work It Out - The Beatles
24. Classical Gas - Mason Williams
25. 10,000 Miles - Mary Chapin Carpenter
26. Rain - Patty Griffin
27. Tango - Patty Larkin
28. Sweet Bird - Joni Mitchell
29. Mr. Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan
30. Honey And The Moon - Joseph Arthur
31. Know By Now - Robert Palmer
32. Lucky Man - Emerson, Lake and Palmer
33. And You And I - Yes
34. Black Coffee - All Saints
35. For Emily Wherever I May Find Her - Simon & Garfunkel
36. Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First) - John Cougar Mellencamp
37. A'soalin' - Peter, Paul & Mary
38. Goin' Up To Country - Canned Heat
39. Whiter Shade Of Pale - Procul Harum
40. Morning Has Broken (Traditional) - Cat Stevens
41. Passion - Raya O'Coal
42. Bloszfueszig - Broadlahn
43. Shotgun Down The Avalanche - Shawn Colvin
44. Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Judy Garland
45. Small Blue Thing - Suzanne Vega
46. Thank U - Alanis Morissette
47. Lady Of The Island - Crosby, Stills and Nash
48. Because It's There - Michael Hedges
49. Stolen Land - Bruce Cockburn
50. All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan) - Jimi Hendrix
51. Sorento Moon - Tena Arena
52. Could I Be Your Girl - Jann Arden
53. Sand And Water - Beth Nielsen Chapman
54. Hammond Song - The Roches
55. Raincloud - Lighthouse Family
56. In The Arms Of An Angel - Sarah McLaughlin
57. Learning To Fly - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
58. One Of Us - Joan Osborne
59. Keep Your Distance (Richard Thompson) - Buddy and Julie Miller
60. Change The World (Sims, Kenney, Kirkpatrick) - Eric Clapton
61. Highwayman - Jimmy Webb
62. Bramble and the Rose (Barbara Keith) - Kate Brislin and Jody Stecher
63. La Guardia - Tito Puente
64. Way Of Beauty - Linda Waterfall
65. Aerial Boundaries - Michael Hedges
66. Hide And Seek - Imogen Heap
67. Have You Got It In You - Imogen Heap

I have a different list for classical music that I might post someday.

pro-limited-choice

I have hesitated to write about the issue of abortion directly in my blog for some time now. It is a very controversial issue and I have not wanted to upset anyone by sharing my thoughts on this subject. Persons on both sides will probably find my views upsetting.

First of all, let me make it clear that I see absolutely no difference between the "Islamic" brand of terrorism and that of "Christrian" extremists who bomb abortion clinics and murder physicians in the name of some misguided "pro-life" stance. The murder of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday was an act of pure terrorism and definitely not Christian in any way.

Although I am a woman and a liberal, I think abortion should normally be allowed only within about the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Most miscarriages occur within the first 12 weeks, so before then, going to term with a healthy baby is just a potential. A woman should know by the 12th week (which is actually 10 weeks since conception, because the weeks are counted from the first day of the last period, with ovulation occuring two weeks after) if she wants to go to term or not and should decide, within this time, to abort or not. If she misses this deadline, then society should provide her with before and after health care, living facilities if necessary, and with adoption possibilities if that's what the woman wants, or with job training and social services including child care if the woman chooses to be a single mom and to work. Of course there could be very exceptional circumstances, like the woman develops a case of toxoplasmosis or German measles and doesn't want to bring a physically challenged child into the world. There should be provisions for safe later-term abortion in very exceptional circumstances having to do with the health of the mother or the viability of the child-to-be.

The dialogues that go on about this subject are usually either/or, black and white, with conservatives "against" and liberals "for", when what is needed is some kind of an in-between place. What really gets me going is that most of the people I have ever spoken with who are dead-set against abortion are also rabidly against government-provided social programs and services that would be truly needed if abortion were to be banned again, and most are also against programs about safe sex and birth control. Banning abortion will not prevent women from seeking abortions in ways that are not safe, as they did before abortion became legal, so that as before many women will die, along with their unborn fetuses.

Many of the people I have spoken with about this issue also supported the invasion of Iraq that has resulted in the deaths not only of more than 4000 US soldiers, but also of an estimated more than 1.3 million Iraqis whose country will never be the same again - who will not be able to go anywhere without reminders of pain and sorrow - so many lives and loved ones lost in this ill-conceived misadventure. So, conservatives who supported this war and who support war in general, how is war okay and abortion not okay? I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer to this question.

I think a woman should have a right to choose to a limited extent, and that society should be prepared to assist women who choose to continue their pregnancies. Maybe more women would make pro-life choices if they were assured of a social safety net.

a favorite poem...

Very early in my young adult life I found the poem by Max Ehrmann called Desiderata. This poem brought me much peace and comfort in the many years since then. I still like it very much and want to preserve it here in my blog. Even though they don't know it, and even though they possibly don't even read my blog, some of these posts are attempts to preserve for my children some of the things that I have thought about or found meaningful in my life. Life is so random, and one never knows how long one will be around in this world. I'm pretty sure I've never talked with any of my children about how much I like this poem. Probably most older people know this poem already, but possibly my children have never seen it before, so this post is for them.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann
c.1920

close call...

Some weeks ago, I started experiencing a progressively worsening dull ache just below/underneath my right bottom front rib cage area. Lucky for me, I had recently ordered a book about liver and gallbladder cleansing, so started doing the simple seven-day cleansing program described in the book.

The program involves drinking apple juice every day for six days to soften the gallstones, and then following a timetable for taking two doses of epsom salts in water, followed by a mixture of virgin olive oil and grapefruit juice, followed by sleep, followed by two more doses of epsom salts. According to the book, one must repeat the cleansing program about every three weeks until no stones pass out in two successive treatments. As prevention, the book recommends performing the cleanse about every eight months.

I was amazed to see all the stones that passed out of me, but the pain continued for some days, perhaps because the gallbladder became inflamed from having been stretched by the stones to nearly its limit. The dull ache is slowly subsiding, I'm feeling better with each passing day, and I think I possibly avoided emergency surgery.

Since doing the cleanse, I have found various similar cleansing programs online, some using lemon juice instead of grapefruit juice, some with and some without epsom salts. While conducting this search, I remembered finding some years ago online a simple lemon juice and olive oil remedy for kidney stones that worked like charm for a friend of mine.

I just wonder how anyone discovered that using large amounts of olive oil and citrus juice could have the effect of shifting stones out of the body. It is mystifying how these remedies come into being.

gadget woes...

Well, although it appears that my blog is no longer suffering from the dreaded Internet Explorer (IE) "Operation aborted" error, the problem is not really fixed yet. My IE problem started immediately after I added a gadget called My Library Thing. I wanted to delete it to see if it was what was causing the problem, but I then encountered another Blogger bug that prevented me from deleting it! I reported my problems to the Blogger technical staff via the Blogger Help Group forum called Something is Broken and someone from Blogger Help must have edited my blog (without telling me!) to remove the My Library Thing gadget because it is gone now.

Other blogging friends who are using external gadgets who use Firefox instead of IE may have been unaware that their blogs were causing problems for their readers who use IE. For example, for one of my favorite bloggers, The Existentialist Cowboy, I had to use the Back button four times before I could get into his blog. This may seem rather bad, but I found one other blog where I had to use the Back button 14 times before I could read it! It appears as though these blogs are also "fixed" now - the offending gadgets removed!

I don't think it is really a solution to take away gadgets from our blogs in order to resolve such problems. My case is rather simple with only one gadget causing a failure of IE and only one gadget to be restored, but other bloggers have many more gadgets to restore. In the case of the guy with the 14 gadgets, does he even remember anymore which gadgets he had so that he can restore them? Is it the gadgets that are causing the problem, or something more fundamental like an IE Internet Options setting?

I hope they will figure out a solution soon and that it will involve restoring all of our gadgets as transparently as they were removed. I really liked the My Library Thing gadget and I want it back!

There is a dedicated page for the "Operation aborted" problem in Known Issues for Blogger called some-users-are-seeing-operation-aborted.

Operation Aborted!

If you are using Internet Explorer, you might get an "Operation aborted" error when you try to open my blog! Try using your Back button from the error page!

You can read more about this known problem here: Known Issues for Blogger

a weekend away...

Photos from the southern wine-growing region of Styria, in Austria, near the Slovenian border...

unnecessary hurtfulness...

There's this very interesting blog I found because of a post in another blog of a friend of mine - at least I like to think of him as a friend. I haven't heard from him for a while and I am worried about him. I hope he is okay.

Anyway, this interesting blog has got a lot of historical stuff in it, plus commentary about politics and life and circumstances in the USA vs. other places. The blog owner is authoring a book and works for a rather prestigious magazine, and most of the people who read this interesting blog seem to be very highly educated and/or are writers themselves so are good with words and sharp of tongue. The blog posts are very understandable and I have felt inspired sometimes to make straightfoward comments based on my own life experiences, as I have done fearlessly in other blogs, only to notice later that all of the other subsequent commenters were saying things that were not so understandable - i.e., it was not always obvious to me how they got from the understandable blog post to their witty comments - and I felt embarrassed to see the stark contrast between the simplicity of my comments and the complexity of those of the others. Recently, I had the impression that one of the clever commenters had noticed me and, in an indirect way, implied that more time should be spent thinking before commenting, if one even should choose in the end to comment at all. Thankfully, at my request the blog owner, reluctantly because he thinks all comments are worthy, deleted my comments, thus saving me from indefinite public humiliation.

I have come a long way in my life towards learning to be strong and positive, but this meanness instantly reduced me to tears and I felt surprised that I can so easily crumble simply because of mean words of a person who doesn't even know me. I guess I still have some growing to do in that area. I feel better now that all evidence of my comments has been obliterated and I have also decided to be more careful about posting anything into the interesting blog in the future. I have found in my life that it's usually best to just avoid situations that potentially create emotional discomfort, like finding an excuse not to get into the same elevator as someone who I know doesn't like me so well. I really prefer to avoid all unnecessary hurtfulness in my life.

Wiener Schnitzel revisited...

I had been living in Austria for more than 25 years before I tried to make Wiener Schnitzel myself. What a surprise! Not only is it very easy to do, but it tastes so much better than any Wiener Schnitzel I have ever eaten in a restaurant. The family agrees, so Wiener Schnitzel has become a favorite and regular family meal.

Nearly every restaurant in Austria offers Wiener Schnitzel. In my earlier post about Wiener Schnitzel, I mentioned using pork, but authentic Wiener Schnitzel is actually made with veal; the restaurant menu will usually indicate what type of meat will be used. It's not unusual for a restaurant to serve a Schnitzel of one piece so large that it hangs over the edges of the dinner plate!

Here are some pictures from the preparation of the latest meal. I used about 2 pounds (900 grams) of pork. Sometimes more than four eggs are required - better to start out with less and then add more if needed.

+ + + + + + + +

Prepare three large plates with flour, eggs, and bread crumbs...



Beat the eggs...



Get out a large cutting board and a mallet...



Work from the cutting board towards the stove, in this case, right to left...



Pound the meat until it's the desired thinness (remember to salt and pepper each side!)...



Coat each side with flour...



Coat each side with beaten eggs...



Coat each side with bread crumbs...




Place gently into a skillet of heated peanut oil...



Fry until deep golden brown on each side...



Don't forget the lemon!

my obsession of the last six years...

I'm really not a very patient person, which is why I hate sewing. It can take days to make something nice, and almost every sewing attempt has ended in some kind of a disaster, like sewing one piece to another at the wrong place and having to rip everything out and start over.

Knitting also requires a lot of patience, especially if one wants to make something interesting. Knitting something beautiful not only takes a lot of time, but it can be very tricky to recover from mistakes with it. I decided, after stabbing myself with a knitting needle during an attempt to make a simple sweater for one of my children to be, that knitting wasn't really my thing either.

I do like crochet very much, though. I have made numerous scarves, and in my younger years even invented a small bag to hold my set of jacks and rubber ball. I made bags for my sisters, too. Crochet only requires one tool, the work goes relatively quickly (it's possible to make something beautiful in just a few hours), and it is also rather intuitive and easy to recover from mistakes.

Another type of handwork that I have always appreciated is beadwork with seed beads, especially that of Native Americans, and in my teens, I experimented with weaving beads and trying to replicate some of the patterns. I remember making a rather complicated and beautiful amulet of an eagle on a chain of beaded flowers for a close friend of mine and although I was very satisfied with the result of my efforts, I found the work tedious and didn't feel inspired to try making anything else after that.

I was therefore thrilled when my older sister taught me the art of beadcrochet in 2003. This craft which puts seed beads and crochet together has given me countless hours of pleasure in the last six years and I still feel driven to find new patterns and color combinations. I've made more than 400 bracelets and more than 40 necklaces. Each bracelet takes about four hours; necklaces take longer, depending on the length.

Following are scans of a few of my favorites.


This one with the dragonfly has a matching necklace and I wore them with a red gown to a ball at the Vienna Hofburg one year. The dragonfly is not crocheted, but is made with beads and wire.

The above bracelet was inspired by the colors in a painting in the home of a friend of mine. I like to wear it with an orange braclet on one side and a red one on the other.

This flower pattern is one of my favorite patterns. I made the above bracelet for a friend of mine who suggested the colors. I really enjoyed working with the bright orange beads.

I made the bracelet above for another friend of mine who wanted something with yellow, orange and red in it. There are approximately 30 different beads in the pattern. The pattern was kind of an accident, but a good one!

when the world seemed like a safer place...

It's funny how seeing a color can catapult me back through time. I had a friend named Barry who got a gold bike for Christmas one year. We all thought it was just the greatest and most beautiful bike we had ever seen. It looked so lovely in the sunlight, and whenever I see this certain shade of gold, I remember Barry's bike.

There is a shade of pink that takes me back to the 50's, back to a time before I could even formulate words, to a feeling - a remembrance of seeing the color - of looking at it for a long time - enjoying its pinkness as if there were nothing else in the world. When I see certain colors, I can become almost hypnotized by them and engulfed in these past feelings that I cannot even name.

There are smells that have a similar effect on me. I often cannot even identify when I first experienced the smell and don't understand why a smell gives me a feeling of some long ago time - maybe a time when I felt safe and the world did not seem so complicated - a time before words and judgements. Usually the smells are of flowers or perfumes, but the smell of certain foods can also bring on feelings or scenes from the past, like the smell of glazed donuts that will always remind me of when we stayed at a motel for a week before boarding a ship that took us to an island in the Pacific. My parents went out and got these incredible still-warm glazed donuts every morning and we had them for breakfast. This was in the 60's when glazed donuts still tasted really amazing.

Today I remembered some of the colors and smells associated with starting school each year in the fall: freshly sharpened pencils, the beauty of clean paper in new notebooks, a new piece of oil cloth for my desk, new Oxfords, new Crayola crayons, used books with new treasures between the pages. I loved the time of year, too - leaves turning and starting to fall - and at my first school, the walk home past a flower shop where the kind proprietress would sometimes give us free carnations.

I enjoyed learning and felt safe at my first school. I had friends there who accepted me. I fit in. Sadly I had to leave that school halfway through my third year, because my father was transferred to a new location, and about every three years thereafter we moved to a new place and I was the new kid in the class. I became aware of being separate, of being the odd one out, of not fitting in.

Normally I'm in a really good mood, but today I feel sad and melancholy thinking about how soon it was in my life that I had to leave the safety of these early years. It would have been nice to have remained a little longer in that time when I fit in and the world seemed like a safer place.

Donna Eden and Energy Medicine

One of the most comprehensive books on the subject of energy medicine is, in my opinion, the book entitled "Energy Medicine", by Donna Eden.

Donna Eden has been able to see colors around people since she was a child, and didn't realize that this was a rather unique ability until she was in her early twenties - she had believed until then that everyone could see the colors that she could see. Her ability to see colors helped her to develop the many techniques that are described in her book. She had a private energy medicine healing practice for many years and worked with thousands of people during that time. She also used her own techniques to overcome a number of her own health problems. More recently, she founded a school with a two-year programme for becoming certified as a practitioner of her methods (which, if I win the lottery, I will immediately sign up for).

Because I find it easier to learn by seeing someone do something vs. reading about it in a book, I recently ordered the 3-DVD "Energy Medicine - The Essential Techniques", described as "A Companion to the Book Energy Medicine or an Independent Program to Optimize Your Health", from her website. The quality of the videos is very good (although the user interface to them could be better), and Donna Eden is a delightful presenter. The videos contain six hours of Donna Eden demonstrating the exercises and techniques described in her book, including how to work with the meridians of Chinese medicine and the chakras, and her own unique exercises for improving the flow of energy within the body for better health, such as her Five-Minute Daily Energy Routine.

Whereas the videos are demonstrations of all of the many techniques described in the book, the book provides more background information and includes selected accounts of experiences with people Donna Eden worked with in her many years of private practice. She also touches on subjects such as the colors and meaning of the chakras. Since she is able to sense energetically and to see so much when she works with a person, everything she describes about the chakras is coming from her own personal experience and is sometimes very different from the explanations or interpretations of them that one finds in most other sources. For example, she is very definite that the first chakra, the root chakra, governs sex (in most other texts, this is assigned to the second chakra). She also says very firmly that, while the standard colors do serve as a guide, she sees many other colors in every chakra - that the various chakras in a person are frequently other than the colors assigned to them in the standard literature and that they often contain multiple colors.

I highly recommend this book!

Wiener Schnitzel!

Tonight I made Wiener Schnitzel for dinner. It is so good when it's homemade, and so easy! Basically, you need rather thin slices of pork which you should then hammer with a mallet on each side until about 1/8 inch thick or even a little thinner. Salt and pepper the first side before turning over to hammer the second side, then salt and pepper the second side after hammering it. Dip the hammered meat first into flour so that it’s dusted all over, then into beaten egg until completely coated, then into fine (like coarse sand) bread crumbs. The breaded meat should be fried in a flat skillet with about ¾ of an inch of heated peanut oil. Fry on each side until the breading is a nice deep golden brown. Remove to a plate with paper towels to absorb the excess oil. It must be served with lemon wedges - squeeze the lemon over it before eating.

You can use chicken breast instead of pork, but you need to then hammer it a little more gently, because chicken breast is a much more delicate meat. When chicken is prepared this way, it is called “Huehnerschnitzel” in German.

As an accompaniment, I cut some broccoli into florets, peeled some brussel sprouts, added a fair amount of virgin olive oil and some salt, mixed it all up well with a slotted spoon, then put the mixture on an oven tray and roasted it at about 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) until a bit brown (about 10 minutes).

20 minutes on the bus...

Since the beginning of November last year, I have been working towards becoming a Quantum-Touch® Certified Practitioner. One of the requirements is 60 hours of practice sessions, of which I have completed 53.5 hours, so I hope to achieve Certified Practitioner status by the end of April. Since late January, I have been giving free (since I am still an apprentice) QT sessions to people at work during my lunch hour in order to accrue the 60 hours. A part of me feels like this energy work is kind of like "hocus pocus", especially since none of the people I have worked on so far have reported any long lasting effects from their sessions with me, although most do report feeling relaxed, refreshed, and that their energy seems to be flowing better at the end of a session. I know that I feel energized at the end of a session or whenever I work with the breathing and imaginative techniques.

What keeps me going is the hope that this kind of energy work really does have a positive effect. I have heard and read about various results from QT work such as the realignment of bones and quick relief of pain, but I have yet to actually see or experience anything very exciting. The most amazing tale I have heard so far was related by a participant in one of the Quantum Touch workshops that I attended. She described the unexpected and remarkable healing of her father who had been hospitalized and had not been expected to pull through. The man, more than 70 years old, became very ill and no one knew what was wrong with him. He was rushed to hospital by ambulance and had been in hospital for nearly a week and was not expected to live. She called her friend, a Quantum Touch practitioner, and asked that he do some distance healing for her father. While he was on the bus, he did the distance healing for twenty minutes for her father. That evening, her father started vomiting violently. This went on off and on through the night. The next day, he started to improve, and he was discharged from the hospital two days later.

Read more about Quantum-Touch®.

Some inspiring blogs...

I started this blog because of reading something in a book that I disagreed with so strongly that I wanted to express my opinion in such a way that more people than those with whom I live would read it. I really still feel very strongly that life on earth is random and that, while there may be a universal power or being, there is no universal power or being micromanaging everything that goes on here.

When I started this blog, I never expected that I would ever post as much as I have, since I really am a person of few words. Also, prior to starting this blog, I had only ever visited a handful of blogs, most of them political. Once I joined blogspot myself and had access to my own personal dashboard and its "Blogs of Note" page, a whole new world of really beautiful blogs written and assembled by very thoughtful and creative people was revealed to me, and my interest in my own little insignificant and unremarkable piece of cyberspace faded. I'm finding it more fun to keep up with what other people are writing and posting than to add much to my own blog, plus there is so much going on in my life right now and I don't have a lot of extra time to write. I do feel inspired by these other beautiful blogs, though, and maybe someday, if I ever get any extra time, I will try to make my blog a little more beautiful, or at least a little more interesting with photos or something.

If you look at my Profile, you can see all of the blogs I've been following. All of them are interesting in some way, and of all of them, there are some that really take my breath away, make me think, make me laugh, or are otherwise uplifting. A few of these are:

Merisi's Vienna For Beginners : Such wonderful, colorful, magical photos!
Strawberry Fields : More beautiful photos by Merisi!
A Majority of Two : Jo is very opinionated, but in a good way, and she often makes me laugh.
Miradas Cantabricas : Amazing close-up photos of birds!
Artistic Balance : lovely photos and artwork!

Hope you will visit them sometime!

Everyone can be an artist...

"Are not painting and color inspired by love? Is not painting merely the reflection of our inner self, whereby even one's skill with a brush is surpassed? It has nothing to do with it. Color with its lines contains your character and your message. If all life moves inevitably toward its end, we should during ours paint it with our colors of love and hope. In this love lies the social logic of life and the essential part of each religion." -- Marc Chagall

I love this quote from Marc Chagall, because he seems to be saying that it doesn't matter if you can draw or not - that every person can express their own unique character and message through color. I think everyone can be an artist and should try putting color on paper or canvas. I don't have time in my life right now, but someday I hope to find time to do this.

My Chicken Bryan

I really enjoy cooking and eating good food, and have collected many good recipes over the years. I've been thinking I might morph this blog into a recipe blog with photos, but I just haven't gotten myself organized yet.

One of the most amazing dishes I have ever had at any restaurant is the "Chicken Bryan" at Carrabba's. I found a copycat recipe from a Google search, but I think that it has way too much butter in it (nearly one cup!). Here is my variation. I'll try to remember to take a photo next time I make it, but that might be awhile, since BBQ weather is not exactly around the corner!

Marain's Chicken Bryan
Serve with steamed broccoli or spinach and a dry white wine
Serves 6

* * * * * Sauce * * * * *
1/2 cup dry white wine (110 ml)
1 small onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 Tablespoons butter (55 grams)
4 Tablespoons Chavroux (mild goat's cheese) (55 grams)
2 Tablespoons lemon juice (or to taste)
1/4 cup cream (more or less - to taste) (55 ml)
ground black pepper
* * * * * Grilled Chicken * * * * *
6 chicken breasts, skinned
olive oil
salt
black pepper, ground
* * * * * Topping * * * * *
fresh basil leaves
10 ounces sun-dried tomatoes (in olive oil), drained (285 grams)
11 ounces Chavroux (mild goat's cheese) (300 grams)

Directions:

1) Sprinkle each chicken piece with salt and pepper and rub each piece with olive oil. Grill the chicken pieces on the BBQ for about 20 minutes.

2) While the chicken is being grilled, put the white wine into a small saucepan on medium heat and put in the chopped onion and the crushed garlic. Simmer the mixture, stirring occasionally, until the wine is nearly gone.

3) Add the butter, about a tablespoon at a time, stirring after each addition while the butter melts. Add the 4 Tablespoons of goat's cheese. Add the lemon juice and cream, but add it gradually and taste the sauce while you do this and add more lemon juice or cream, according to your taste. Later add some ground black pepper.

4) Rinse the sun-dried tomatoes under cold water. Just squeeze the tomatoes to remove excess water, then chop them into strips.

5) Just before the chicken is done cooking on the grill, preheat oven to highest temperature using grill setting.

6) When the chicken pieces have been cooked through on the BBQ, put them in an oven-proof dish large enough to hold all the pieces and the sauce.

7) Cover each piece completely with basil leaves, then cover the basil leaves with drained sun-dried tomatoes, then put about 3 tablespoons of sauce over each piece. If there is sauce left over and it will fit into the dish, put the extra sauce around the chicken pieces, then top each piece of chicken with a couple of scoops of the goat's cheese.

8) Put the dish into the oven (the rack should be at the highest setting that the dish still fits under the grill).

9) Grill for approximately 8 minutes (or until the the sauce around the chicken is real bubbly).

a long-dead horse...

I've been a little under the weather, but also at a loss as far as what to write about, since what has captured much of my free mental space for the last eight years has shifted. In 2000, after the (still) unbelievable success of legal arguments not to count votes, I joined the ACLU. After 9/11, I started studying Arabic as a kind of rebellion against the demonization of Arabic-speaking people by the neocons and religious right. I wanted to be able to read their magazines and newspapers, and to have conversations with real people, and not just get the Western opinion and propaganda (this has since become a very long-term goal, as Arabic is unbelievably difficult). In 2003, I hoped and prayed that diplomacy would be chosen - that the inspectors would be allowed to finish their work - only to despair. In 2004, I found the book "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11" by Dr. David Ray Griffin, suggesting in a very convincing manner other explanations than the official story and I became and will remain interested in this issue until a proper investigation is undertaken. The 2004 election result was a shock, since it was not in line with the exit polls or with polls in the run-up to the election. Further research produced information that electronic result flipping had likely occurred. I agonized nearly every day for approximately eight years about the erosion of democracy in America and, time after time, I watched Democrats in Congress cave in to every demand of the "administration" - it seemed inexplicable, as though the resident had some magic potion that turned everyone into obedient zombies.

I didn't follow everything in detail. It was all so much - too much - the warrantless wiretapping, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary renditions, Guantanemo, authorities no longer needing court oversight, probable cause, knowledge or permission of residents to conduct warrantless searches of private residences, the threat of indefinite incarceration at the whim of some goverment official. Even within the last weeks before the inauguration, further icky things were approved, like the dumping of millions of gallons of toxic waste from cruise ships one mile offshore of the eastern USA coastline.

Fortunately, about half way through these long dark years, I found some websites that became my daily dose of sanity: Glenn Greenwald, The Brad Blog, and The Existentialist Cowboy. Glenn Greenwald has the ability to explain legal matters in a way that is captivating and understandable and spoke eloquently and forcefully against the legal arguments used by Bush&Co to justify their lawbreaking. He is still speaking out about legal issues in a very understandable way, and it is worth subscribing to Salon to read his column without all the ads. Brad Friedman has been working tirelessly to inform public officials and anyone who will listen of the dangers inherent in the use of electronic voting machines - a true modern day hero of democracy who will go down in history as such. And Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy, raging against all of the atrocities, not only of the last eight years, but also of more distant times, showing connections between so many seemingly unrelated persons and events, and frequently putting into words frustrations that I had felt but could not voice - like a good thunderstorm to clear the air, he cleared my mind and helped me to see so many things.

I'm glad for and relieved about the regime change and believe that at least the intentions are more in line now with what the founding fathers had in mind, but I'm kind of wondering what Obama thinks about bipartisanship now that ALL of the Republicans and 11 Democrats in the House voted against his economic recovery package. Bipartisanship died even before Bill Clinton. The only "bipartisanship" has been Democrats going to the dark side. I wonder if he will somehow be able to revive this long-dead horse.

beautiful birds...

Many years ago, during the last winter I spent in the Pacific Northwest before I moved to Europe, I had the good fortune to experience the Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count, an annual event that has been going on for more than 100 years where volunteers from all over the United States go out into the cold winter weather to count birds. The volunteers that year were organized by the husband of a friend of mine who had been an Audubon Society member for many years and who had a good many Christmas Bird Counts already under his belt.

Our task was simple: Go outdoors with our binoculars, notebook, and pen or pencil, look for birds, make note of their types and numbers. Ultimately, our data was sent to a central Audubon Society office where it was tabulated and used for creating a census of birds in the entire country for that year.

It was wonderful trudging through the snow, scouting for birds, finding and watching them through the binoculars for a whole day. When I returned to the warmth of my house at the end of the day, I remember having a feeling a peacefulness that I have never felt since.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing about this is that the Blog of Note from 21 January 2009 was Miradas Cantábricas and consists of some of the most beautiful photos of birds that I have ever seen. Except for not being outside, looking at these photos of the birds is as good as the Christmas Bird Count and makes me want to venture out into the cold this weekend to see what birds I might be able to find. Check it out! It's in Spanish, but you don't need to be able to read the words to enjoy the photos, although it's useful to know that if you click on the words "Entradas antiguas" at the bottom right of the page, you will get a new page with more photos from earlier blog posts.

President Obama!!!

It is done! A good beginning! Godspeed brave new leader!

Quantum-Touch®

One of my interests is energy medicine, and especially the approach described in the book "Quantum Touch", by Richard Gordon, and in another book that expands upon the QT techniques called "Supercharging Quantum Touch", by Alain Herriott. I found these two books about a year and a half ago, have been working with the color meditations described in them for a little more than a year, and in November and December of 2008, I attended two weekend Quantum-Touch® workshops. I enjoyed the workshops very much because I had the opportunity to work with real people vs. doing imaginative work and experimentation with sending energy to people far away on my own.

In very general terms, the person doing the QT work does breathing and imaginative exercises to raise their energy level up through their body from the feet to the head and down and out through the hands, then very gently applies the hands and sometimes only fingertips to the affected areas of a person's body. The body of the person receiving the energy then responds to the energy and their own body, knowing how to heal itself, heals itself. It apparently can also work when the person doing the QT work is very far away from the person being worked on. What seems great about it, is that the person raising the energy doesn't need to know anything about healing, they only have to be good at raising the energy and keeping it flowing.

This morning, I was looking at a book called "Vibrational Medicine: The #1 Handbook of Subtle-Energy Therapies", by Richard Gerber, MD. There is a chapter in this book about scientific studies that have been done with persons who describe themselves as spiritual healers. These studies show that, even from a distance, such persons can have a positive effect on plants, animals, and water, and that, in general, the effects are always towards life, health, and improvement, and away from entropy. One of the studies suggested that anyone could learn to do this kind of work and that effectiveness seemed to improve with practice.

There is more information about Quantum-Touch®, including videos of lectures by Richard Gordon, available online at the Quantum-Touch® website:

http://www.quantumtouch.com/index.php

by their fruits you will know them…

What I don't get about Christian fundamentalists, apart from their inability (unwillingness?) to see that much of the Bible is metaphorical (Jesus himself is famous for his metaphorical stories - the parables), is that they pay so much attention to quotations from the Old Testament (to be discussed in some future post maybe) and to what the apostles, his imperfect followers, had to say. In my view, the most important and only entirely essential information required by a Christian is to be found in the gospels.

Although the apostles were delegated by Jesus to carry on his work, they were still fallible and made mistakes. They were different from you and me only in that some of them knew him personally, but that wouldn't automatically make them great teachers themselves. I have known at least one great teacher in my life, and I can tell you that neither I nor any of the other students who learned from him could ever presume to convey more than an imperfect remembrance of only a very small portion of all of the things that he said and did during the time that we knew him. Great teachers speak truth from a place of inner certainty and knowing. Jesus spoke from his own inner awareness and certainty of the fact of his divinity and of ours (from the Christian viewpoint, logic dictates that if God is our father, we are his children, and therefore also divine – another future post, maybe). When Jesus said "follow me - I am the way", he was instructing his followers to BE like him.

It is my opinion that the writings of the apostles in books other than the gospels could be compared to this or any other blog post where someone writes about what they think about some subject, and such writings may or may not be of any value in terms of ultimate truth. I think one must really consider and decide for themselves whether or not to accept as truth anything that is written, no matter where it is written or who the author might be.

Some of the breadcrumbs of Jesus' thought processes, however, which could be useful for someone who wanted to emulate him, remain in the few things that he is alleged in the gospels to have said and done, although likely not everything was recorded accurately or completely. Nevertheless, it seems to me that what Jesus had to say, and his reported behaviour as recorded in the gospels should provide the definitive behavioural guidelines for anyone wanting to be Christ-like, and while there are some inconsistencies, mostly the messages are pretty consistently:

- "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
- "forgive others"
- "do not judge others"
- "feed the hungry"
- "visit the sick"
- "give to the poor"
- "be merciful"
- "love one another"

and, moreover,

- "love your enemies"

I have wondered, since many supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, how Christian fundamentalists reconcile with their supposed faith and "saved" status the dropping of bombs on anyone, since Jesus admonished "love your enemies", and taught such things as "Blessed are the merciful", and "Blessed are the peacemakers", and "whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of judgment", and "for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil", and "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not him that is evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also". I can't find anything in any of the recorded words or deeds of Jesus that would justify dropping bombs on anyone.

Jesus also allegedly said some pretty amazing things like

- "greater things than these shall ye do"
- "if you had the faith of a grain of mustard seed, you could move a mountain"

I don't see any Christian fundamentalists trying to move mountains or perform miracles, or even trying to convince anyone else that this is possible, and I bet if anyone started moving mountains or performing miracles, there would be a huge outcry that the miracle worker/mountain mover is the anti-Christ. If Jesus came back again, would he be recognized? Would the fundamentalists accept him or call him the anti-Christ? How would they know it was him and not some impostor?

These long dark past eight years, I have wondered how those who think of themselves as being Christians could continue to support and defend an administration that, among all the other terrible things it has presided over, so obviously cares nothing for the poor and has done everything possible to facilitate further filling the already over-full coffers of the very rich.

Jesus is also reported to have said "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits". A lot of bad fruit has come out of the Bush administration - we now have a 10 trillion dollar deficit (this seems like minus fruit to me), there is a huge financial crisis with more and more people losing their investments, their retirement funds, their jobs and their homes with each passing day, more than 1.3 million Iraqi people are dead because of an illegal war undertaken on the basis of known lies - these are but a few examples of all the bad fruit. Bush and his minions are at least false prophets and Bush is himself possibly the anti-Christ, except he will be gone in a few days and hopefully won't feel inspired to push the button as his last dastardly deed before we see the backside of him. I hope that the next time we must endure the frontside of him, he will be sitting in a court of law where he will be made to answer for his many crimes. He claims to be born again, but his fruit says otherwise - a bad tree (my apologies to all trees, but please blame the Lord for the analogy) who won't be gone soon enough for me.

my favorite luxury...

I like a lot of different kinds of music, but mostly I prefer silence. If any music that I know or like is going on, I can become totally distracted from whatever task is at hand. Music can take over my mind completely, so that anything requiring careful or analytical thought becomes impossible. Even worse, listening to just about any music can have the effect of it repeating endlessly in my mind for days or even weeks afterwards, which can be especially annoying if the songs are ones I don't particularly like, or thought I liked very much but after hearing them for the five thousandth time in my head I don't like them so much anymore. I suppose on the plus side, this capability that I seem to have of being able to replay any song in my head repeatedly can be convenient because I don't need an iPod or a CD player when I want to listen to my favorite songs, but I feel happier when there are no songs playing in my head and there is only silence.

I sometimes enjoy listening to lively, energetic, "up" music when cleaning house - I can get a boost in my energy level from such music, with the knock-on effect that the work seems easier. Sad music, on the other hand, can leave me with a feeling of melancholy for days, and since I do tend to find the sadder songs more beautiful, I have to be careful not to listen to them too much since I prefer to be in a good mood.

Any kind of interesting, complex, or beautiful music can space me out to the point that it's dangerous if I happen to be driving at the time. I once nearly caused an accident while listening to such music in my car, but fortunately other drivers were paying attention. I rarely listen to music in my car anymore.

I purposely never play music in the car when other people are with me, as I prefer having conversations with people when I am driving. Maybe other people can talk when music is playing, but I don't seem to have this ability. Music takes over my mind and I find it very difficult to carry on a conversation. My children have never been very happy that I never play music in the car while driving them to school and back, but we have had many interesting conversations over the years and I am certain that the silence allowed these conversations to happen.

Before the days of radio and other modern audio devices, most people only ever listened to music at church, concerts, and special events, unless they were musicians and could play an instrument or sing for themselves. I think that the modern world suffers from an unfortunate gluttony of sound. Nearly every public place plays some kind of music, as if silence is some sort of negative state that must be avoided at all costs.

For me, music is a type of noise, not always unpleasant, but always distracting from what's going on inside me. Silence allows me to hear my inner voice and to have control over what thoughts I think and what feelings I feel. Silence helps me to know what I feel and to deal with how I feel. I prefer silence whenever possible. It is my favorite and most valued luxury.

see this picture...

I feel an obligation to write something about 911 because I am convinced that the the twin towers and WTC7 were brought down by controlled demolitions, and as the tragedy recedes further into the past, I fear that finding out what really happened will become less and less important to people. I think it is very important to find out what really happened that day and to find and prosecute the true perpetrators.

I know that there are those who have never entertained the possibility of any other explanation than the official conspiracy theory, and it is frightening to think that something so horrific could be perpetrated by anyone, let alone by persons who might have been US nationals themselves. Most people are more comfortable with the idea that it was definitely carried out by foreign nationals. However, it is convenient, don't you think, that those who were blamed were from the Middle East where the richest oil reserves exist, situated in Afghanistan where the Taliban had been refusing to allow the building of an oil pipeline. I do not know who was behind 911, but I think it is useful to consider who might have benefitted and there is a well-researched article about this at the following link:

Cui Bono, Who Benefits from 9/11

If anyone thinks that the official version is true, I would urge them to view the video 911 Mysteries. You can see it online at the official 911 Mysteries website where you can also order copies of the DVD for a very nominal fee. The 911 Mysteries video presents the facts in a very sane and non-emotional way and when you take all the points together that are made in this film, it's hard not to see the official story as being itself a conspiracy theory - one that's filled with so many holes that you wonder how it got sold in the first place.

What has angered me more than anything since September 2001 is that the official story of 911 was used unashamedly to drive the policies of those in power. To me, the use of this crime against human beings, while knowing that the real perpetrators were not those of the official account, in order to disassemble the Constitution, to start an illegal war, to destroy our privacy, to defy the Geneva Convention, and on and on is beyond criminal and treasonous - it is pure evil. I just wish enough people could see this picture that I see.

Smoking – A Physical and Psychological Approach to Quitting

I wonder how many people would ever start smoking in the first place if they realized how difficult it is to stop once the habit has been formed. Once you are addicted, smoking a cigarette becomes a compulsion rather than a choice and, according to one study, it is so difficult to quit that only about 20 percent of smokers ever succeed in giving it up. Why is this so? I firmly believe the reason why it is so difficult to quit is that there is a psychological component to smoking which is usually never acknowledged or dealt with.

It is well known that the nicotine in tobacco causes physical changes in the body and that regular smoking leads to physical dependence, but if smoking were merely a physical addiction, wouldn't it be much easier to quit? One could simply stop, feel restless and irritable for two or three days, and be cured forever. Do you know anyone who has quit like that? And if you know any former smokers, you probably know at least a few who have told you that if they ever smoked even one cigarette it would be all over - they'd be smoking again. One does not become addicted by smoking just one cigarette, so are they really cured, or merely capable of exercising tremendous and continual self-control?

As a smoker of nearly two packs of cigarettes a day for at least 15 years, I knew that, for me, smoking was more than just a physical addiction. Whenever I felt anxious, worried, or frustrated, smoking a cigarette seemed to make me feel a whole lot better. If I had to think about a problem or concentrate on some task, a cigarette really seemed to help. How would I deal with feelings of anxiety and frustration if I tried to quit? How would I be able to concentrate? How would I be able to think anymore? And what would I do with my hands? I really felt I would be a psychological wreck without my cigarettes.

Also, I had tried to quit several times and had failed, and was aware of certain feelings associated with the effort and failure - primarily anxiety and guilt: not smoking made me feel anxious which made me want to smoke which, if I gave in, made me feel guilty, which made me feel more anxious, which made me want to smoke more - on and on in a vicious circle. So I needed to find a way to quit that would reduce anxiety and guilt and I felt convinced that, in order to succeed in quitting, I somehow had to deal with what I perceived as a strong psychological dependence.

What follows are some suggestions about how a person might work with both the physical and psychological components of smoking in order to quit. This is basically how I quit smoking in 1983. It took me about three months to feel cured of my compulsion to smoke whenever I felt stressed. These things worked for me, but please note that it is not my intention to serve as a replacement for anyone’s common sense or the good advice of a licensed physician.

Physical:

1. Stop inhaling the smoke. My experience: This was very uncomfortable for about three days, because I think I must have gone through a strong physical withdrawal. I felt agitated, irritable, anxious, and miserable, but after three days, I felt I had conquered most of the physical addiction. After three days, without even trying, I was smoking half the number of cigarettes daily and I felt generally less inclined to smoke as much as I had before. Smoking without inhaling was not as pleasurable, and it was only marginally better for my health, but I learned to do it and it seemed preferable to not smoking at all.

2. Resolve never to inhale cigarette smoke ever again. Although this is difficult in the beginning, I think it is very important to the physical cure, and it becomes easier as time goes on. If you start to inhale again, you will become physically addicted again. Think about how you felt for the last three days. You don’t want to go through that again.

3. Drink water instead of lighting up. Always keep a tall glass of water nearby and reach for it first before you light up. Enjoy the taste of the water.

4. Whenever you feel an urge to smoke, take a few slow deep breaths first. Enjoy the sensation of the fresh clean air. Try to postpone lighting up for as long as possible.

5. Take up some new activities where you are not allowed to smoke or where smoking would get in the way.

Psychological

1. Make a list of all the ways that cigarettes are bad for you and think about the items on this list whenever you smoke and also at other times during the day. The purpose of this exercise is not to make you feel guilty about smoking, but to gradually create an aversion to smoking within your mind. If you start associating smoking with unpleasant things, then it will become easier to find something else to do instead.

2. Disrupt your smoking habits. Try to identify occasions when you always light up and make an effort not to always smoke on those occasions. The important thing here is to make every day different and to train yourself that it is okay not to smoke when you normally would. This is just a game you are playing with your habits so that eventually the habits no longer exist. Try to make it challenging and fun. You can still light up as long as you don’t inhale the smoke.

3. Whenever it occurs to you, consider all of the positive benefits of being a non-smoker. Write them all down and read your list before you go to sleep at night. Take some slow deep breaths after reading your list and enjoy the sensation of the fresh clean air.

The Final Stage:

At any time in the above process, you can make a conscious effort to cut down on the number of cigarettes you smoke each day. When you start to make this effort, do not judge your results from day to day too harshly. Treat it like another game you are playing with your smoking behavior and try to make it challenging and fun. See how few cigarettes you can smoke in one day. See how many days you can go without smoking. Think of how to reward yourself when you have an especially good day. The number of cigarettes you smoke each day may vary anywhere from none to any maximum. The only rule here (and for the rest of your life) is that should you decide to indulge in a cigarette, you may not inhale the smoke – not ever – do not ever give in. It may seem hard at first, but it will become easier and easier as time goes on and if you make a sincere effort to do all of these things, you should eventually find that you don’t even think about smoking anymore and that you are cured of your addiction.

GOP cyber-security expert explains how Ohio was stolen in 2004

"I don't care if my candidate wins as much as I care about being in a democracy. Either I am or I am not in a country that elects its leaders - that's what I want - and if my party is elected, great - and if my party is not elected, great - I still live in a democracy." - Stephen Spoonamore, Cyber-Security Expert and Republican - from Fifty ways to steal an election

Wow! YES! A cyber-security expert who is a Republican and speaking out about the threat to democracy posed by electronic voting! My hero!

In the Fifty ways to steal an election video, Stephen Spoonamore talks about how, while it is true that individual machines can be hacked, greater vulnerabilities exist when tabulated results from individual princincts are transferred over networks to centralized tabulating machines.

Since November of 2004, I have been trying to tell just about anyone who would listen that the 2004 election had been stolen. I was certain of this because I had been following the polls closely, had expected a Kerry win, and the exit polls did not agree with the final outcome. Many people I spoke with were surprised that GWB had been re-elected, but had not questioned the result (most people don't ever use USA and banana republic in the same sentence), accepting that this must have been what most Americans wanted. At every opportunity I would express my strong view that the result was not a real one - that the election had been stolen by electronic tampering - but this view was usually met with what I perceived as a kind of quiet skepticism, and only rarely did anyone immediately agree with me or appear to want to discuss the issue further.

I really believe that electronic voting machines pose the greatest threat to democracy everywhere. You can bet that if these machines do finally become accepted throughout the USA, the rest of the world will be the next frontier for the voting machine companies.

If you have any doubts about the dangers of electronic voting, listen to Stephen Spoonamore. He is a cyber-security expert and knows what he is talking about and, what's more, he is a Republican, so why would he lie? Did I really just say that? What I mean to say is, he is a Republican, so he has not got any kind of liberal or leftist agenda.

There are actually a number of Stephen Spoonamore videos that can be found at Velvet Revolution (page down about a third of the way to "Featured Video - GOP Cyber Expert - 2008 Will Be Stolen - Voting Machines Are National Security Threat"). The sound quality is not so great, but what he has to say is truly riveting. It is a rather long video, but underneath the main video there are additional links to the highlights from it, my favorite of which were:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyByZx5GEaw 
It’s a network, people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YadsHqxid8I
Electronic voting machines are a national security threat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOHkY7sJ4ZI
Fifty ways to steal an election.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJHmuG8d2bQ
The Rapp Family: Ohio election cover-up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z7DK3LgiOA
Evangelicals and voting machines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WTe8ppEIic
Paper ballots please.


I do not think that the results of the 2008 Presidential election (not sure about Senate and House races) were tampered with electronically in a significant way, although vote flipping was reported to have occurred in some precincts, and recounting of the same batch of ballots produced different results with each recounting in at least one place (see The Brad Blog for a lot of good information about these 2008 issues, as well as a wealth of other info about the dangers of electronic voting). However, even though the 2008 Presidential election does not appear to have been fiddled with, the threat of electronic tampering still exists and must be eliminated if true democracy is to survive. If you care about democracy, urge all public officials to get rid of electronic voting and return to paper ballots that can be recounted and audited if there are any questions about the results.

My letter to President Elect Barack Obama

I don't want my blog to be a political one since so many really excellent political blogs exist already and I hardly have the time to read them all, let alone try to dream up something that they are not already saying, but I'm sharing this because it says so much about what I have thought about nearly every day since diplomacy was abandoned in 2003. I felt inspired to share it after noticing that MadAsHellLiberal had posted in her blog what she had written to the change.gov website about what can be done to improve health care. It's very easy to post your thoughts at the transition website, and I really believe that someone there is listening and that it's worth the effort to share your ideas. Just go to http://change.gov/ and click on the TELL US YOUR STORY button in the red box.

Here is what I wrote on 15 November 2008 to the http://change.gov/ website:

Dear President-Elect Obama -

It feels like a huge black cloud has lifted from our nation and the world and that the sun has finally come out after eight long and terrible years. I feel hopeful about the future once again, and a sense of trust in your own visions for America.

I know that you want to focus on positive visions for America and this is really important and necessary now. I just want to urge you to hold the lawbreakers of the last eight years to account. This is important, not only because they broke the law, but also because they used their positions of power to do so, and put instruments into place to allow those who hold power in the future to do the same. We should not just brush all of this lawbreaking under the rug of the positive visions for the future in the interests of bipartisanship. I hope your administration will immediately close Guantanmo Bay, immediately forbid torture, and take whatever time is needed to examine all of the lawbreaking in detail - the signing statements, extraordinary renditions, the limitless detention of US citizens at the whim of the President, warrantless wiretapping and spying on US citizens - with a view to enacting legislation that will prevent such lawbreaking in the future. Hold the lawbreakers to account with fines and jail sentences, not only because they so deserve it, but also as a deterrent to future would-be lawbreakers. We cannot just forget these last horrible eight years. We need to do something to ensure nothing like this can ever happen again. Please protect America's future by arresting the criminals of the last eight years. It will not be pretty or popular, but it is necessary for our nation and the survival of our democracy.

Also, I am very concerned about the huge problems with voting machines, and feel strongly that they are possibly a greater threat to our democracy than the lawbreaking of the last eight years. It is a conflict of interest that private industry has been allowed to get anywhere near the collection and tallying of our most important instrument of democracy. While it appears as though this particular Presidential election (not sure about the Senate/House races) was not tampered with electronically in a significant way, during this election vote-flipping was reported to have occurred in some precincts and dusty optical scanners produced different results with each recounting of the same batch of ballots (see The Brad Blog). That no tampering appears to have occurred with the Presidential result, this may just be a tactic to lull everyone into a sense that these machines are okay so that more precincts throughout the nation will install them and so that results won't be questioned in the future. I'd like to see at least eight years of your administration, and these machines are a definite threat to that. There is an excellent book: "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count" by Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss. They identified an 8 million vote discrepancy, almost exactly the amount by which you currently lead Senator John McCain. There are also two excellent films that deal with the dangers of voting electronically: "Uncounted" and "Murder, Spies, and Voting Lies" (this last film was just named "Best Documentary" at the NJ Film Festival), as well as a very short filmclip done at Princeton about how easy it is to hack into an electronic voting machine: Princeton University Diebold Machine Hacking Demonstration.

I feel proud again to be an American and am so glad that you will be our nation's leader for at least the next four years (and hopefully the next eight!). Thank you for being who you are and for having the courage to step forward to help our nation and the world in such a difficult time. I wish you every success in all of your efforts!

Spitball...

I have never been very fond of dogs, mainly because of their smell, but also because most seem inclined to jump up on me unexpectedly while slobbering. Having said this, I once had the good fortune to get to know a dog named 'Spitball', and ever since, well, if my life was such that I could have a dog, I would try to find one like Spitball.

Spitball was the dog of my daughter's husband who had played baseball avidly as a youngster and named his dog after a special kind of baseball throw. My daughter married into their relationship, along with her cat, and while the cat never really adjusted to her new circumstances, Spitball was quite happy to have another human being in his life, another animal to hang out with, and extra (cat)food sometimes when no one was paying attention.

I first met him shortly before my daughter's wedding. He was well-behaved - not the kind of dog who jumped up or slobbered on me - which made it easy to like him, and I found him very nice looking in spite of him being somewhat overweight. We didn't really spend too much time together, though, and I felt content to appreciate him from a distance. The most memorable event during my visit was that, while we were all out at a pre-wedding dinner, he found and ate a box and a half of the chocolates that I had brought from Europe as a gift for my younger sister. She was so mad, but I thought it was kind of funny, especially since parts of the cardboard chocolate boxes and plastic wrapping had also disappeared, never to be seen again. I later heard that chocolate is poisonous for dogs, but he was not affected in the least, and lived for many more years.

I didn't see him again until some years later when my daughter was about to give birth to her first child. He had lost a lot of weight since our first meeting, and was noticably older, but still of good cheer and as hungry as ever. Because of my daughter's condition, I helped out by going on daily walks with him. I'm not a very active person by nature, so at first this was a little hard for me, but I soon grew to look forward to our daily outings and really enjoyed spending time with him in this way.

We could not always take him with us when we would all go out together somewhere. On those occasions, they would put him in a special cage until we returned home (this because he had, in the past, done unforgiveable things like getting into the garbage, eating things he shouldn't have eaten, and doing other things that should not be mentioned). Whenever he was put into this cage, he would howl and howl until he was let out again, and I found this heartbreaking.

On a few occasions when I was at home alone with him and had to go out for something, I would take him with me because I just could not bear to put him into the cage. He became my pal - my buddy - totally acceping going out with me, a relative stranger. He was always very quiet, but excited in a subdued sort of way that he was going somewhere. Once, I took him with me to a friend's house. My friend also had a dog, and three ferrets that were allowed to run free, and a small pond with fish, and several cats. Spitball had such a great time hunting the ferrets, chasing the cats, drinking water from the fish pond, and hanging out with the other dog, and I felt glad that I had brought him with me to enjoy this different world.

Spitball had very kind eyes and such a pure heart that I could not help but love him. He taught me that non-human creatures are innocent and have no badness in them. Even though he is no longer here, I sometimes feel like he is with me, and I will always feel thankful to have known him and to have experienced his goodness for a little while.

we are so small...

This beautiful image of the Cartwheel Galaxy, one of the billions of galaxies in the universe, is from the galaxies section of http://www.astronomy-pictures.net/ where you can download space images for free.

action is important...

"The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves." - Terry Tempest Williams

I was raised as a Catholic, went to parochial schools until I was sixteen, learned that only Catholics could get into heaven, and even wanted to be a nun at one point. In spite of all this, I abandoned the idea of hell in my early teens when, for about three years, I spent most of my waking hours outside. Confronted with the incredible beauty of cloud formations, sunsets, flowers, trees, coral reefs, and star-filled night skies, I could no longer believe that the Creator of these wonders would ever banish its creations to hell for all eternity. I rejected what I had been taught about eternal damnation without any reservations and without ever feeling a need to seek reassurance from anyone - it was my secret heresy and I enjoyed thinking about it secretly. When I was about seventeen, my Mom started talking to me about reincarnation and karma as possible explanations for the meaning of life and we had many discussions that ultimately had the effect of opening my mind to the possibility that the Catholic Church did not hold a monopoly on the truth. These discussions with her marked the beginning for me of a long and still-ongoing search for whatever truths there may be to be found in this world.

In the early days of this journey, I encountered for the first time some born-again Christians who seemed very similar to the Catholics I had grown up with. They were sure that they had found the absolute truth and that only other people who believed exactly as they believed could be "saved". Annoyingly, their approach to any new person was to ask "Are you saved?" Not being so distant from the Catholic Church at that point in my life, my reaction was "Well, of course I'm saved - I've been baptized as a Catholic!" Even now, though, after so many years, whenever I am asked this spiritually arrogant question, I find it really hard to react in a polite way.

In my opinion, being "saved" (if such a thing exists at all) is not something that would happen to me at some fixed point in time - as in some moment's grand revelation - but is rather an ongoing process of the choices I make - choosing to be kind or not, helpful or not, understanding or not, to do my best or not, day after day. Of course I am not perfect and do not always succeed, and sometimes I am even an opportunity for someone else to practice patience or not, but I will keep trying - I will to keep trying. I think intention and effort matter more than consistent outcome, and that even one totally failed effort to be loving is worth more than a lifetime's worth of revelations not followed up by action.

imagining color for peace of mind...

The original of the above image can be found at: http://4colorvision.com/dynamics/mechanism.htm

I changed it slightly, because the original image had a funny greyish dot in the middle of the white, so I put a little bit of white over it. I like using this image stretched out as my computer desktop image.

Anyway, the reason I looked for such an image was to help me with something that's relatively new in my life - a kind of walking meditation I do on my way to and from lunch at work or whenever I have a chance to walk somewhere. It is a way to clear my mind of any negativity for awhile and makes me feel very energized and positive. I imagine the purest colors possible in the following order: red, orange, yellow, green, sky blue, indigo, violet. These colors correspond to the seven chakras, so I also imagine them in the places of the chakras as I go along. For the heart chakra, which is green, I also imagine a beautiful warm rose pink color, like a flower, and sometimes I imagine gold after violet.

It occurred to me to try doing this after reading about color meditation in the book "Quantum Touch", by Richard Gordon. He doesn't talk about doing color meditation while walking, but since I really hate sitting in one place for any length of time unless I'm forced to do so (e.g., long airplane, bus or train trip), it occurred to me one day to try doing color meditation while walking.

I like it that I can do this imagining while I'm going somewhere and that the effects have been only positive - I feel better, and people I pass often smile at and/or stop to talk to me.

In the process of looking for a color image to help me with this exercise, I learned that color blindness is more common in men, that most human beings have trichromatic color vision (meaning they perceive color in three channels), and that about ten percent of women have an extra channel for perceiving color giving them tetrachromatic color vision. For more info on tetrachromaticity, see:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721190-114.stm

life is random...

I started reading a book - actually more like just flipping through it and reading random passages. Towards the end, the author starts talking about the dark night of the soul and that supposedly a person doesn't experience this until they are 'ready'. I think this is just such a load of rubbish! I think, living in the world, we are all subject to random bad stuff that can happen and just happens, and that there's not any meaning in it and we are not being punished or tested or whatever. I don't believe in karma, except for the karma that we all share by entering this world again and subjecting ourselves to the randomness of the bad stuff that can happen by virtue of being alive (plus we all die someday - we can't avoid that). There's also all the random good stuff that happens to enjoy. The only things we have any control over are our state of mind and our actions and our reactions. I think it's important to try to learn from what happens and to try to love and help and not judge the people around us - it's important to try to be a positive influence in the world.