Just a brief post because I'm dreadfully behind on my studying, hope none of my professors read this! However, I wanted to take just a moment and tell you about a great website to visit.
The link below goes to a website for Barack Obama and contains 30-second ads made up by average people as part of a contest they sponsored last month. It's interesting to see what normal citizens came up with when asked to create a positive message in support of Barack Obama. They're holding voting on these ads now and the winners will be used as national campaign spots. It's really worth your while to check out some of these ads, but I'll warn you - if you watch one, you'll watch 20 - they're addictive! And some are quite touching as well in their sincere desire for change. Some of them even brought tears to my eyes. Anyway, click the link below to get there, and enjoy!
http://www.obamain30seconds.org/vote/?t=3&id=12485-8890007-RE8aIm
Peace,
AuntieM
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Melanoma - the gritty, graphic truth
Friday morning I woke up to a news snippet on the radio about an entertainer who had died. The cause of his death was melanoma, malignant skin cancer. After some investigation I discovered the entertainer in questions was Danny Federici, keyboard player in Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band. He was 58.
I didn't know him personally. I couldn't have told you his name before this. But this news struck a nerve with me because on April 3, 2006, my Mom died, also of melanoma. I don't think that melanoma is taken nearly as seriously as it should be. There are so many types of cancer we've learned to fear, but somehow skin cancer, as preventable as it is, often doesn't make the list. Lung cancer? Sure. Breast cancer? Of course. Prostate cancer? Yeah guys, a good reason to get those physicals. Cervical cancer? Pap smears are lifesavers. But how many of us actually do skin self-exams or visit a dermatologist for regular skin exams? Not many. Not nearly enough.
I don't have any photos to show the exact damage my Mom suffered, which is a shame - during the later stages of her illness she lamented that there weren't photos of advanced melanoma available so people could see just what they were risking every time they tanned. I do have a photo of Mom taken in the early 1960's, in which she was laying out in the backyard sunbathing. Many years later, she wrote on the back of that photo in a very shaky hand, "This is why I got melanoma!"
Don't let that time span fool you: it's not the sunburn you got last week that causes skin cancer, it's the sunburn you got 20 years ago. Back when I was a kid we weren't as aware of the risks as we are now, yet today a tan is still regarded as "a healthy glow" when it really should say "I'm flirting with a really hideous premature death". An interesting conversation happened at work a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and some of the interns chose to enjoy lunch outside. Afterward they came into the kitchen where I was chatting with a volunteer. The interns were comparing how much sun they'd gotten - one was already showing signs of a burn. The volunteer told me that she didn't try to tan anymore since she had a basal cell carcinoma (benign skin cancer) taken off her nose. I told her that I had also had a basal cell removed near my ear (truth, and I hope that's the only skin cancer diagnosis I ever receive), but that my Mom died of melanoma and I never want to see anything like that again. The interns left, but after they got out into the hall I heard one of them scoff about our skin cancer conversation. Must be nice to be young and bulletproof.
This post isn't for the faint of heart: I want to provide a description of exactly what my Mom went through, from the time that her melanoma was diagnosed until she died, six months later. The progression of her illness was very typical for the stage and location of her tumor, according to my copious research. I did a lot of investigation during this period; six months was par for the course, and the spread of her cancer followed the typical pattern. A tumor located on the torso usually spreads as follows: lymph nodes, lungs, liver, brain, other internal organs.
I wasn't too clear on the function of the lymphatic system and getting a good understanding of it took some effort, so here's a quick summary: the lymphatic system takes waste away from the organs and transports it to the liver for filtration and removal. Everything that lives must eat, and that includes our organs. Everything that eats, generates waste, and that's what the lymphatic system removes from our bodies. That's why the lymph nodes are the gateway for tumor metastasis - because they channel waste from all over the body. In case you ever wondered why they remove lymph nodes when someone has a tumor, that's why. They can tell by examining the lymph nodes if the cancer has spread by the presence or absence of cancer cells, and removing those nodes puts up a roadblock in the path of metastasis, making it harder for a cancer to spread.
Mom's melanoma was actually a recurrance of one she had in 1985. The original tumor was located on the outside of her left arm, midway between the shoulder and elbow. They removed the tumor (with a 2-inch margin to get any stray cells - excising 2 inches of tissue all the way around the tumor and down to the bone, she had one hell of a scar) and they also removed the lymph nodes under her arm, both to see if it had spread and to make further spread more difficult. She enrolled in a clinical trial being conducted by Duke Medical Center, and it worked: it gave her another 20 years.
Fast-forward to October 2005. Mom had a bump under her left arm that just wouldn't heal. I think she suspected there was something really wrong, but she had a lot of mental things working at the time, including continued grief for Daddy, who died in 2000. She delayed getting that bump checked out until it formed a blister and broke, bleeding profusely. By then it was far too late; the bloodstream is a tremendously effective way for cancer cells to spread throughout the body. Her dermatologist immediately recognized the bump for what it was - advanced melanoma - and sent her to Duke Medical Center. They removed the tumor, which was under her arm, a very hard place to heal after surgery even if there's no cancer involved. With cancer, forget about it - her incision never did heal fully. For the rest of her life she lived with an oozing surgical wound under her left arm. Believe it or not, that was one of the better features of her illness.
Her left arm began to swell, a condition called cellulitis. It became greatly enlarged, about the same diameter as a man's thigh. Between the unhealed surgical incision and the cellulitis she was unable to lower her arm to her side, and it became a useless appendage she had to keep propped up 24/7. Her arm became rock-hard because of the fluid buildup, and was cold to the touch because of impaired circulation. She was on and off of antibiotics and other meds to treat the cellulitis for the rest of her life.
In late January or early February she began to develop additional lesions on her arm. These lesions followed the same progression as the first: a bump, then a blister, then they burst and bled. After that they wouldn't heal. Instead they just oozed a really nasty smelling bloody discharge. Think fish lying in the sun, three days dead. It was the smell of rotting tissue. Eventually these lesions sloughed off (essentially melted and rotted away) and left a layer of black tissue underneath. Totally black, dead tissue. At this point she had also begun to cough up blood, an indicator that her cancer had metastasized to her lungs.
In early February she had a PET scan which showed multiple hot spots on her lungs and at least one on her liver, indicating metastases. A PET scan is actually pretty cool - Positron Emission Tomography. Tumors are greedy little buggers, they consume a higher level of glucose and nutrients than healthy tissue. So in a PET scan they inject glucose tagged with a radioactive isotope, then do a series of radiographic studies to see if there are areas in the body that are consuming this glucose at a higher rate than normal. These spots light up on the scan and usually indicate cancer cells.
Mom lived in North Carolina, where Hubby and I are from. I made two trips from Colorado to NC during her illness. The first was in mid-February and lasted five days. During that time I helped to take care of Mom, and we hung out together and had a good time. I met her home health care nurse and additional members of her medical team. This was the next-to-last time Mom knew who I was. When I returned on my second visit in late March, Mom looked at me, asked who I was and demanded that I leave her house or she would call the cops. (In the hospital she had a brief period of lucidity, which is fairly typical for one who is near death. More on that later.)
My first visit to NC was pleasant; my second was a surreal nightmare. My sisters were physically and emotionally exhausted from trying to take care of Mom at home. Mom wouldn't allow hospice to come in, first out of denial, then she wasn't in her right mind and couldn't see that my sisters were overwhelmed. Home health care was no longer adequate. The scattered lesions I had observed on her left arm during my visit the previous month had merged into one giant oozing black sore that was larger than my outstretched hand. The lesions had spread to her chest and back as well, so there were hundreds of individual oozing bumps that wept a bloody, reeking discharge. Her dressings had to be changed every three hours or so, around the clock. Her arm was so large that normal pajamas wouldn't fit, no matter the size. On my February visit I bought her half a dozen pair of pajamas and additional fabric that I used to enlarge the left arm of each PJ top. Those pajamas were the only thing she was able to wear for the rest of her life. The smell from that discharge permeated every room, every soft surface of the house. If it couldn't be cleaned it had to be disposed of, including her mattresses and her recliner. I had read that some people are simply more susceptible to that smell than others, and apparently I am one of them. The only way I was able to cope was to keep some Vicks smeared under my nose like they do in morgues.
Within 18 hours of my arrival in NC (and after a mostly-sleepless night, between bandage changes, and Mom alternately threatening to have us arrested if we didn't leave her house and begging us to kill her) I was having my Mom admitted to Duke Medical Center against her will. This actually took some doing. Fortunately her Home Health care nurse came by early that morning and saw just how badly Mom had deteriorated in just a few days, and started arranging the admission with Mom's doctor. The only way to get her to the hospital was by ambulance, because of her left arm - she couldn't fit into a car. I had to convince the paramedics to take her against her will, because despite her condition she still tried to act like everything was fine, and without a medical power of attorney to back me up, I had to depend on the paramedics to see the problem and do the right thing, which they did. The ER doctor who first examined Mom was horrified by her condition and told us that if we hadn't brought her to the hospital when we did, she likely would have died within 24 hours and it would have been gruesome. All the while she was demanding to be released and taken home, but fortunately the ER doc saw that her mental status was severely altered (as a result of the tumors that had spread to her brain) and once he consulted with Mom's oncologist he admitted her over her objections.
There were some other factors in play as well. It turned out that Mom was also developing pneumonia, and her cellulitis was worse as well. She was also dehydrated because she was losing a lot of fluid to the discharge and we couldn't get her to drink enough - in her mental state she thought we were trying to poison her. She was also in intense pain which we couldn't control at home -Fentanyl didn't even come close, and in the hospital morphine wouldn't touch it; she wound up on Demerol. I can't say enough good things about the nurses at Duke Medical Center, they took incredible care of her. She stayed in the hospital until she died five days later, but during those five days she received the care that my sisters and I didn't have the training to provide, and I believe this enabled Mom to reach some level of acceptance regarding her impending death.
My sisters and I worked out sort of a routine of visiting so one of use was there most of the time. As the family night-owl I usually went to the hospital in the evening and stayed until the wee hours of the morning, often 1 or 2am. Then I'd go back to Mom's house and sleep till late morning. On the third day of her hospitalization Mom had a few hours of lucidity in which she knew who everyone was, knew where she was and why, and was more like her old self than she had been since Daddy died in 2000. My sister called me from the hospital and I rushed over to find Mom sitting up in bed, awake and aware. It was amazing to see. This period only lasted a few hours, but it was like one final gift. There was a booklet from Hospice that detailed things that typically happen during the dying process, and this period of lucidity was listed as often happening a few days before death. By that evening her period of lucidity was over and she lapsed into unconsciousness again. She did rally briefly that night, enough to say she was hungry. I fed her some chocolate pudding which she enjoyed tremendously. After just a few bites she'd had enough and said she was going to sleep. Those were the last words I heard her speak, and the last time I know of that she was conscious. That was Saturday night. That same evening her kidneys began to shut down, and by Sunday night her urine output was near zero. By Monday they'd shut down altogether.
I arrived at the hospital on Monday night and immediately knew there was something wrong. As I approached her room I could hear her struggling to breathe from half a dozen doors away. Her breathing had fallen into a pattern called Cheyne-Stokes, which usually happens when death is imminent. The patient's rate of respiration slows drastically, maybe 3 breaths per minute, and the breathing is loud and labored. I found Mom's nurse who told me she'd only come on duty a couple of hours before but Mom had been doing that when her shift started. The nurse advised me to go ahead and call other family members, with the caveat that it could be minutes, hours or days. So within 10 minutes of arriving I was on the phone, calling my sisters to come to the hospital. It was a little after 9pm. Two of my three sisters arrived by 10pm or a little after (the third was en route) and Mom died at 11:20pm. Nothing dramatic at the end; she took one breath and simply didn't take another. She was 71.
Copies of the Hospice booklet on dying were readily available at Duke, and I found myself picking up copies and giving them away to friends or family on their request and needing to get another copy for myself. Our society discourages discussions on death and dying, and the majority of people in our society know very little about the dying process. Those booklets were the only source of information that many had ever seen, so of course they were snatched up quickly. I did manage to bring home a copy for myself. I hope I won't need that info again for a long, long while.
Now you can see why this news item caught my attention so firmly. This also explains my year-round pallor, fondness for sunhats and the bottle of sunblock stored in my desk drawer (in case I want to go walking at lunch). I hope this story helps folks take skin cancer and sun exposure risks more seriously. There aren't many effective treatment options for melanoma that's advanced past stage 2 - that's why the survival rate is so slim for advanced melanoma. Mom knew that her diagnosis was most likely a death sentence. That's one reason to place heavy emphasis on prevention - by the time you get around to having that bump checked out, it may be too late. So be sun-smart and prevent the damage.
This is a story that I wanted to share. I hope this causes a few folks to reassess their own choices, go ahead and get that spot checked, or make sure to use sunblock! You may very well save your own life.
I'll get back to my usual rabblerousing and muckracking in my next post. I've got some great material to work with - there was a documentary on PBS' Frontline which compared medical care in different countries with US medical care and looks to see how we can fix our broken healthcare system. It's available in its entirety online at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld Hubby also found a fascinating-sounding documentary for us to watch in the next few days which examines the war in Iraq and asks the questions 'who really profits?' and 'where does all the money from the war really go?' I think the answers to those questions will be quite infuriating.
Later,
AuntieM
I didn't know him personally. I couldn't have told you his name before this. But this news struck a nerve with me because on April 3, 2006, my Mom died, also of melanoma. I don't think that melanoma is taken nearly as seriously as it should be. There are so many types of cancer we've learned to fear, but somehow skin cancer, as preventable as it is, often doesn't make the list. Lung cancer? Sure. Breast cancer? Of course. Prostate cancer? Yeah guys, a good reason to get those physicals. Cervical cancer? Pap smears are lifesavers. But how many of us actually do skin self-exams or visit a dermatologist for regular skin exams? Not many. Not nearly enough.
I don't have any photos to show the exact damage my Mom suffered, which is a shame - during the later stages of her illness she lamented that there weren't photos of advanced melanoma available so people could see just what they were risking every time they tanned. I do have a photo of Mom taken in the early 1960's, in which she was laying out in the backyard sunbathing. Many years later, she wrote on the back of that photo in a very shaky hand, "This is why I got melanoma!"
Don't let that time span fool you: it's not the sunburn you got last week that causes skin cancer, it's the sunburn you got 20 years ago. Back when I was a kid we weren't as aware of the risks as we are now, yet today a tan is still regarded as "a healthy glow" when it really should say "I'm flirting with a really hideous premature death". An interesting conversation happened at work a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and some of the interns chose to enjoy lunch outside. Afterward they came into the kitchen where I was chatting with a volunteer. The interns were comparing how much sun they'd gotten - one was already showing signs of a burn. The volunteer told me that she didn't try to tan anymore since she had a basal cell carcinoma (benign skin cancer) taken off her nose. I told her that I had also had a basal cell removed near my ear (truth, and I hope that's the only skin cancer diagnosis I ever receive), but that my Mom died of melanoma and I never want to see anything like that again. The interns left, but after they got out into the hall I heard one of them scoff about our skin cancer conversation. Must be nice to be young and bulletproof.
This post isn't for the faint of heart: I want to provide a description of exactly what my Mom went through, from the time that her melanoma was diagnosed until she died, six months later. The progression of her illness was very typical for the stage and location of her tumor, according to my copious research. I did a lot of investigation during this period; six months was par for the course, and the spread of her cancer followed the typical pattern. A tumor located on the torso usually spreads as follows: lymph nodes, lungs, liver, brain, other internal organs.
I wasn't too clear on the function of the lymphatic system and getting a good understanding of it took some effort, so here's a quick summary: the lymphatic system takes waste away from the organs and transports it to the liver for filtration and removal. Everything that lives must eat, and that includes our organs. Everything that eats, generates waste, and that's what the lymphatic system removes from our bodies. That's why the lymph nodes are the gateway for tumor metastasis - because they channel waste from all over the body. In case you ever wondered why they remove lymph nodes when someone has a tumor, that's why. They can tell by examining the lymph nodes if the cancer has spread by the presence or absence of cancer cells, and removing those nodes puts up a roadblock in the path of metastasis, making it harder for a cancer to spread.
Mom's melanoma was actually a recurrance of one she had in 1985. The original tumor was located on the outside of her left arm, midway between the shoulder and elbow. They removed the tumor (with a 2-inch margin to get any stray cells - excising 2 inches of tissue all the way around the tumor and down to the bone, she had one hell of a scar) and they also removed the lymph nodes under her arm, both to see if it had spread and to make further spread more difficult. She enrolled in a clinical trial being conducted by Duke Medical Center, and it worked: it gave her another 20 years.
Fast-forward to October 2005. Mom had a bump under her left arm that just wouldn't heal. I think she suspected there was something really wrong, but she had a lot of mental things working at the time, including continued grief for Daddy, who died in 2000. She delayed getting that bump checked out until it formed a blister and broke, bleeding profusely. By then it was far too late; the bloodstream is a tremendously effective way for cancer cells to spread throughout the body. Her dermatologist immediately recognized the bump for what it was - advanced melanoma - and sent her to Duke Medical Center. They removed the tumor, which was under her arm, a very hard place to heal after surgery even if there's no cancer involved. With cancer, forget about it - her incision never did heal fully. For the rest of her life she lived with an oozing surgical wound under her left arm. Believe it or not, that was one of the better features of her illness.
Her left arm began to swell, a condition called cellulitis. It became greatly enlarged, about the same diameter as a man's thigh. Between the unhealed surgical incision and the cellulitis she was unable to lower her arm to her side, and it became a useless appendage she had to keep propped up 24/7. Her arm became rock-hard because of the fluid buildup, and was cold to the touch because of impaired circulation. She was on and off of antibiotics and other meds to treat the cellulitis for the rest of her life.
In late January or early February she began to develop additional lesions on her arm. These lesions followed the same progression as the first: a bump, then a blister, then they burst and bled. After that they wouldn't heal. Instead they just oozed a really nasty smelling bloody discharge. Think fish lying in the sun, three days dead. It was the smell of rotting tissue. Eventually these lesions sloughed off (essentially melted and rotted away) and left a layer of black tissue underneath. Totally black, dead tissue. At this point she had also begun to cough up blood, an indicator that her cancer had metastasized to her lungs.
In early February she had a PET scan which showed multiple hot spots on her lungs and at least one on her liver, indicating metastases. A PET scan is actually pretty cool - Positron Emission Tomography. Tumors are greedy little buggers, they consume a higher level of glucose and nutrients than healthy tissue. So in a PET scan they inject glucose tagged with a radioactive isotope, then do a series of radiographic studies to see if there are areas in the body that are consuming this glucose at a higher rate than normal. These spots light up on the scan and usually indicate cancer cells.
Mom lived in North Carolina, where Hubby and I are from. I made two trips from Colorado to NC during her illness. The first was in mid-February and lasted five days. During that time I helped to take care of Mom, and we hung out together and had a good time. I met her home health care nurse and additional members of her medical team. This was the next-to-last time Mom knew who I was. When I returned on my second visit in late March, Mom looked at me, asked who I was and demanded that I leave her house or she would call the cops. (In the hospital she had a brief period of lucidity, which is fairly typical for one who is near death. More on that later.)
My first visit to NC was pleasant; my second was a surreal nightmare. My sisters were physically and emotionally exhausted from trying to take care of Mom at home. Mom wouldn't allow hospice to come in, first out of denial, then she wasn't in her right mind and couldn't see that my sisters were overwhelmed. Home health care was no longer adequate. The scattered lesions I had observed on her left arm during my visit the previous month had merged into one giant oozing black sore that was larger than my outstretched hand. The lesions had spread to her chest and back as well, so there were hundreds of individual oozing bumps that wept a bloody, reeking discharge. Her dressings had to be changed every three hours or so, around the clock. Her arm was so large that normal pajamas wouldn't fit, no matter the size. On my February visit I bought her half a dozen pair of pajamas and additional fabric that I used to enlarge the left arm of each PJ top. Those pajamas were the only thing she was able to wear for the rest of her life. The smell from that discharge permeated every room, every soft surface of the house. If it couldn't be cleaned it had to be disposed of, including her mattresses and her recliner. I had read that some people are simply more susceptible to that smell than others, and apparently I am one of them. The only way I was able to cope was to keep some Vicks smeared under my nose like they do in morgues.
Within 18 hours of my arrival in NC (and after a mostly-sleepless night, between bandage changes, and Mom alternately threatening to have us arrested if we didn't leave her house and begging us to kill her) I was having my Mom admitted to Duke Medical Center against her will. This actually took some doing. Fortunately her Home Health care nurse came by early that morning and saw just how badly Mom had deteriorated in just a few days, and started arranging the admission with Mom's doctor. The only way to get her to the hospital was by ambulance, because of her left arm - she couldn't fit into a car. I had to convince the paramedics to take her against her will, because despite her condition she still tried to act like everything was fine, and without a medical power of attorney to back me up, I had to depend on the paramedics to see the problem and do the right thing, which they did. The ER doctor who first examined Mom was horrified by her condition and told us that if we hadn't brought her to the hospital when we did, she likely would have died within 24 hours and it would have been gruesome. All the while she was demanding to be released and taken home, but fortunately the ER doc saw that her mental status was severely altered (as a result of the tumors that had spread to her brain) and once he consulted with Mom's oncologist he admitted her over her objections.
There were some other factors in play as well. It turned out that Mom was also developing pneumonia, and her cellulitis was worse as well. She was also dehydrated because she was losing a lot of fluid to the discharge and we couldn't get her to drink enough - in her mental state she thought we were trying to poison her. She was also in intense pain which we couldn't control at home -Fentanyl didn't even come close, and in the hospital morphine wouldn't touch it; she wound up on Demerol. I can't say enough good things about the nurses at Duke Medical Center, they took incredible care of her. She stayed in the hospital until she died five days later, but during those five days she received the care that my sisters and I didn't have the training to provide, and I believe this enabled Mom to reach some level of acceptance regarding her impending death.
My sisters and I worked out sort of a routine of visiting so one of use was there most of the time. As the family night-owl I usually went to the hospital in the evening and stayed until the wee hours of the morning, often 1 or 2am. Then I'd go back to Mom's house and sleep till late morning. On the third day of her hospitalization Mom had a few hours of lucidity in which she knew who everyone was, knew where she was and why, and was more like her old self than she had been since Daddy died in 2000. My sister called me from the hospital and I rushed over to find Mom sitting up in bed, awake and aware. It was amazing to see. This period only lasted a few hours, but it was like one final gift. There was a booklet from Hospice that detailed things that typically happen during the dying process, and this period of lucidity was listed as often happening a few days before death. By that evening her period of lucidity was over and she lapsed into unconsciousness again. She did rally briefly that night, enough to say she was hungry. I fed her some chocolate pudding which she enjoyed tremendously. After just a few bites she'd had enough and said she was going to sleep. Those were the last words I heard her speak, and the last time I know of that she was conscious. That was Saturday night. That same evening her kidneys began to shut down, and by Sunday night her urine output was near zero. By Monday they'd shut down altogether.
I arrived at the hospital on Monday night and immediately knew there was something wrong. As I approached her room I could hear her struggling to breathe from half a dozen doors away. Her breathing had fallen into a pattern called Cheyne-Stokes, which usually happens when death is imminent. The patient's rate of respiration slows drastically, maybe 3 breaths per minute, and the breathing is loud and labored. I found Mom's nurse who told me she'd only come on duty a couple of hours before but Mom had been doing that when her shift started. The nurse advised me to go ahead and call other family members, with the caveat that it could be minutes, hours or days. So within 10 minutes of arriving I was on the phone, calling my sisters to come to the hospital. It was a little after 9pm. Two of my three sisters arrived by 10pm or a little after (the third was en route) and Mom died at 11:20pm. Nothing dramatic at the end; she took one breath and simply didn't take another. She was 71.
Copies of the Hospice booklet on dying were readily available at Duke, and I found myself picking up copies and giving them away to friends or family on their request and needing to get another copy for myself. Our society discourages discussions on death and dying, and the majority of people in our society know very little about the dying process. Those booklets were the only source of information that many had ever seen, so of course they were snatched up quickly. I did manage to bring home a copy for myself. I hope I won't need that info again for a long, long while.
Now you can see why this news item caught my attention so firmly. This also explains my year-round pallor, fondness for sunhats and the bottle of sunblock stored in my desk drawer (in case I want to go walking at lunch). I hope this story helps folks take skin cancer and sun exposure risks more seriously. There aren't many effective treatment options for melanoma that's advanced past stage 2 - that's why the survival rate is so slim for advanced melanoma. Mom knew that her diagnosis was most likely a death sentence. That's one reason to place heavy emphasis on prevention - by the time you get around to having that bump checked out, it may be too late. So be sun-smart and prevent the damage.
This is a story that I wanted to share. I hope this causes a few folks to reassess their own choices, go ahead and get that spot checked, or make sure to use sunblock! You may very well save your own life.
I'll get back to my usual rabblerousing and muckracking in my next post. I've got some great material to work with - there was a documentary on PBS' Frontline which compared medical care in different countries with US medical care and looks to see how we can fix our broken healthcare system. It's available in its entirety online at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld Hubby also found a fascinating-sounding documentary for us to watch in the next few days which examines the war in Iraq and asks the questions 'who really profits?' and 'where does all the money from the war really go?' I think the answers to those questions will be quite infuriating.
Later,
AuntieM
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Fast food hangover
Yesterday I attended a half-day workshop for work (which was wonderful), and on the way home I picked up some fast food for lunch for both Hubby and myself. That was a really bad decision on my part. I didn't realize that since I've been making a conscious effort to eat healthier, my tolerance for fast food has declined dramatically. I felt sooooo lousy after I ate lunch that it basically ruined the rest of my day. I couldn't do anything, and I mean that literally - I could not force myself off the couch to do more than throw clothes in the washer, and I wound up taking a nap just to escape how bad I felt. Today I woke up surprisingly hungry, when normally I need to be up for at least an hour before I even look at food. I think it all relates back to the fake food I ate for lunch, because I've become accustomed to real food with real nutrients, and suddenly I had assaulted my system with fats, sugars and chemicals that had become foreign to me. My body couldn't cope and everything just shut down.
I was such a slug that if a book or project wasn't within arm's reach, then I really didn't need it badly enough to get up and fetch it. Fortunately I did have an amusing book nearby that I curled up with, called "Don't Eat This Book" by Morgan Spurlock. He's the guy who did "Supersize Me", the one who subjected himself to 30 days of nothing but McFood at great risk to his health. I was feeling so rotten that I was pretty receptive to his anti-fast-food message, but still, wow... Here's statistic that stuck with me: did you know that the average American consumes 1/3 of a POUND of sugar each day, for an extra 600 calories added to his or her diet? That horrified me, as did the list of foods that one wouldn't suspect contain added sugar: cold cuts, sausage, french fries, spaghetti sauce, tomato juice, breads... and those are just the ones I can remember offhand. It's not just the sweetened cereals and sugary sodas that get us. And High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is simply scary. Food manufacturers love it because it is both sweeter and cheaper than sugar, and has uses beyond sweetening (makes baked goods softer, keeps frozen veg from losing their color) so it's used in way more products than sugar ever could be. HFCS is such an artificial compound that our bodies don't really know how to deal with it. Sugar is bad enough for us, but when our bodies encounter HFCS they respond by dumping way more insulin into our bloodstreams to deal with the sudden influx of calories (which over the course of time can lead to first hypoglycemia, then Type II diabetes as your pancreas simply wears out), while at the same time packing away a higher number of calories as fat.
By the way, Spurlock calculated that during his 30-day McFood diet he consumed about a pound of sugar each day. No wonder he felt like crap.
Here's another one: the more sugar or sweetened foods you consume, the less you are able to taste sugar so you need more and more sugar or other sweeteners to get the same effect. This even applies to artificial sweeteners. Several years ago Hubby and I kicked the soda habit and went back to our Southern roots of drinking tea as our primary beverage, except now we don't add sugar. I do add a bit of Sweet'n'Low, but Hubby takes his straight. We have recently begun keeping a few diet sodas on hand, but we only drink those rarely. Since we made this change I have noticed that my ability to taste naturally-occurring sweetness in foods has increased tremendously. I marvel at the inherent sweetness of corn and raw carrots, and some varieties of grapes and apples are simply too sweet for my taste. Milk is amazingly sweet all on its own. But I couldn't taste any of this when we drank sugary sodas regularly. Spurlock is right, use of sugar leads to increased use of sugar - it's a nasty, addictive cycle.
Here's something else that stuck with me: the US population comprises 4.6% of the world's population, yet we consume 20% of the meat produced and slaughtered worldwide. That's just sick, and I mean nauseating, sickening, disgusting. Unfortunately Hubby is on board with this - he's such a meat-and-potatoes person that it's hard to believe we can come up with meals that satisfy both of us. Fortunately he's also open to trying new things, including vegetarian. I made a vegetarian entree for dinner Monday night and he totally loved it. If a dish is flavorful enough, the absence of meat isn't noticeable, even for him. The book also discussed the conditions in which animals live before they are slaughtered for food, and the contamination rates for ground meats. And I'm supposed to make a meat loaf for Hubby's lunches this coming week? REALLY bad timing.
Here's my detox plan for the next few days: nothing but low-fat and high fiber, lots of whole grains, fruits and veggies, an emphasis on vegetarian entrees, and exercise. I want to stop feeling like this as quickly as possible, and will try very hard to remember this lesson: fast food leads to a sluggish and good-for-nothing body, and that's not what I want or need to carry me through life.
Peace (and hummus and veggies),
AuntieM
I was such a slug that if a book or project wasn't within arm's reach, then I really didn't need it badly enough to get up and fetch it. Fortunately I did have an amusing book nearby that I curled up with, called "Don't Eat This Book" by Morgan Spurlock. He's the guy who did "Supersize Me", the one who subjected himself to 30 days of nothing but McFood at great risk to his health. I was feeling so rotten that I was pretty receptive to his anti-fast-food message, but still, wow... Here's statistic that stuck with me: did you know that the average American consumes 1/3 of a POUND of sugar each day, for an extra 600 calories added to his or her diet? That horrified me, as did the list of foods that one wouldn't suspect contain added sugar: cold cuts, sausage, french fries, spaghetti sauce, tomato juice, breads... and those are just the ones I can remember offhand. It's not just the sweetened cereals and sugary sodas that get us. And High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is simply scary. Food manufacturers love it because it is both sweeter and cheaper than sugar, and has uses beyond sweetening (makes baked goods softer, keeps frozen veg from losing their color) so it's used in way more products than sugar ever could be. HFCS is such an artificial compound that our bodies don't really know how to deal with it. Sugar is bad enough for us, but when our bodies encounter HFCS they respond by dumping way more insulin into our bloodstreams to deal with the sudden influx of calories (which over the course of time can lead to first hypoglycemia, then Type II diabetes as your pancreas simply wears out), while at the same time packing away a higher number of calories as fat.
By the way, Spurlock calculated that during his 30-day McFood diet he consumed about a pound of sugar each day. No wonder he felt like crap.
Here's another one: the more sugar or sweetened foods you consume, the less you are able to taste sugar so you need more and more sugar or other sweeteners to get the same effect. This even applies to artificial sweeteners. Several years ago Hubby and I kicked the soda habit and went back to our Southern roots of drinking tea as our primary beverage, except now we don't add sugar. I do add a bit of Sweet'n'Low, but Hubby takes his straight. We have recently begun keeping a few diet sodas on hand, but we only drink those rarely. Since we made this change I have noticed that my ability to taste naturally-occurring sweetness in foods has increased tremendously. I marvel at the inherent sweetness of corn and raw carrots, and some varieties of grapes and apples are simply too sweet for my taste. Milk is amazingly sweet all on its own. But I couldn't taste any of this when we drank sugary sodas regularly. Spurlock is right, use of sugar leads to increased use of sugar - it's a nasty, addictive cycle.
Here's something else that stuck with me: the US population comprises 4.6% of the world's population, yet we consume 20% of the meat produced and slaughtered worldwide. That's just sick, and I mean nauseating, sickening, disgusting. Unfortunately Hubby is on board with this - he's such a meat-and-potatoes person that it's hard to believe we can come up with meals that satisfy both of us. Fortunately he's also open to trying new things, including vegetarian. I made a vegetarian entree for dinner Monday night and he totally loved it. If a dish is flavorful enough, the absence of meat isn't noticeable, even for him. The book also discussed the conditions in which animals live before they are slaughtered for food, and the contamination rates for ground meats. And I'm supposed to make a meat loaf for Hubby's lunches this coming week? REALLY bad timing.
Here's my detox plan for the next few days: nothing but low-fat and high fiber, lots of whole grains, fruits and veggies, an emphasis on vegetarian entrees, and exercise. I want to stop feeling like this as quickly as possible, and will try very hard to remember this lesson: fast food leads to a sluggish and good-for-nothing body, and that's not what I want or need to carry me through life.
Peace (and hummus and veggies),
AuntieM
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The joy of thought
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who perpetrates it." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The above thought was too meaningful to pass up, so when it appeared on my desktop I knew I needed to preserve it on this blog. Lately life has kept me pretty busy, but even though I've been away from my blog I've not been away from agitating, speaking out and generally rabblerousing. I've had a good time.
My philosophy class is truly fertile ground for all of the activities mentioned above, and there are so many young minds that need to be exposed to the joy of free thought! So far my message of thinking, of looking at society to see what's broken, and of finding ways to fix it is finding fertile ground. A discussion held by a group of well-read and well-spoken individuals who are not afraid to speak their minds has to be one of the great pleasures in life. I think Robert Heinlein called this sort of discussion something like "the most fun you can have with your clothes on." Must go back and re-read my Heinlein, it's time for me to ground and center again. I hope I'll be able to work more Philosophy classes into my plan, they're so much fun!
In the past two weeks we've had very lively discussions on the Protestant/Calvinist work ethic, and the impact of race/gender on the current Presidential race. Such wonderful arguments! So many of the ills of our society (stress, workaholism, overconsumption, crushing debt levels, environmental pollution, destruction of natural habitats and open space, overscheduled children with ADHD, depression, et cetera ad nauseum) can be traced back to the notion that working ever harder and denying oneself the simple pleasures in life can buy a spot in heaven. Sick, sick, sick. Remember the 1980's saying "He who dies with the most toys, wins"? The 21st century version of the Protestant/Calvinist Work Ethic pretty much reads "He who dies with the most toys, wins a place in heaven." If that's what it takes, count me out. And if that's the sort of people who will inhabit Heaven, it sounds more like Hell to me. This would certainly prove Sartre right when he said "Hell is other people".
School has been keeping me busy, but I'm still having a wonderful time at it! Each semester Hubby has expressed concern that I'm piling on too much at once and tells me "If I see you're starting to get overwhelmed I'm going to make you cut back on something." He's so sweet, but so far he hasn't had reason to worry. Okay, that one semester when I was still full-time at the casino and took a full-time course load was pretty rough, but I only needed to do that once to graduate when I did, and besides, my feeling is that you can do anything for sixteen weeks if you want it badly enough. Yes, I carry a full-time course load as a matter of routine now, but working only part-time makes that a whole lot easier. I may have a semester of hell coming up - if I try to graduate in May 2009 I'll have to take 15 hours for one semester. My alternative is to stick with my current course load and graduate in August 2009. Decisions, decisions. Either way I can start grad school in Fall 2009 (I think).
It's hard to believe we're starting to wrap things up for the semester, but it is getting to be about that time. So far this semester has gone pretty well, I think my grades are going to be solid. For the first couple of months I was sure that I was doing something wrong in all of my classes, certain that I had missed some crucial element, because they were too easy. I expected to work even harder once I started taking upper-division university level classes in my major. I finally said something about it to a group of colleagues, and they told me that's just the way it is. Apparently mastering the concepts and vocabulary of each subject is the really hard part, and that's the part you do in your lower division or core classes. Upper division classes are mostly devoted to utilizing those concepts. If that's truly the case (and I guess I can't truly relax until my grades this semester are final) then apparently the preparation I received at Red Rocks CC was even better than I thought it was!
I'll admit that I've had my nose so firmly against the grindstone that I've largely ignored the news, and therefore have had little to get pissed off about lately. Hubby is certainly helping to pick up my slack though. The other night we were watching TV and there was a news blurb on BBCAmerica which featured Our Fearless Leader claiming that war in Iraq had led to peace. Hubby turned to me and said "He picked the wrong 'P'. War didn't lead to 'peace', it led to 'profits'." See why I love this guy?!?
I did manage some downtime this week, and had a wonderful time with my friends M and S over wonderful food and cheap Box-O-Wine (my contribution to the party and it was quite well received, thank you). That evening took me right back to the discussion of the Protestant/Calvinist work ethic because that was just the sort of life-enriching experience that a good Protestant/Calvinist was supposed to forgo in his/her quest for salvation. Salvation from what? A life void of fun and friendship is already hell. We didn't solve all the problems of the world in one evening though - we had to leave some for the next gathering. This also takes me to the Margaret Wheatley book, because one section of this book says that (I'm paraphrasing here) overstressed, overscheduled people are likely to resort to strongly entrenched beliefs and behaviors simply because they don't have time or take time to think. They fail to consider their options or engage in dialogue. Instead they resort to reflexive, knee-jerk reactions programmed into them by schools, churches, families and society. This results in support for the status quo and the powers-that-be. What we need is for more and more people to stop, breathe and think. Such a simple action, when done by many, can change the world. Maybe we need to set aside a day for thought, meditation and reflection. Hmmm, something to propose at our next gathering!
Peace,
AuntieM
The above thought was too meaningful to pass up, so when it appeared on my desktop I knew I needed to preserve it on this blog. Lately life has kept me pretty busy, but even though I've been away from my blog I've not been away from agitating, speaking out and generally rabblerousing. I've had a good time.
My philosophy class is truly fertile ground for all of the activities mentioned above, and there are so many young minds that need to be exposed to the joy of free thought! So far my message of thinking, of looking at society to see what's broken, and of finding ways to fix it is finding fertile ground. A discussion held by a group of well-read and well-spoken individuals who are not afraid to speak their minds has to be one of the great pleasures in life. I think Robert Heinlein called this sort of discussion something like "the most fun you can have with your clothes on." Must go back and re-read my Heinlein, it's time for me to ground and center again. I hope I'll be able to work more Philosophy classes into my plan, they're so much fun!
In the past two weeks we've had very lively discussions on the Protestant/Calvinist work ethic, and the impact of race/gender on the current Presidential race. Such wonderful arguments! So many of the ills of our society (stress, workaholism, overconsumption, crushing debt levels, environmental pollution, destruction of natural habitats and open space, overscheduled children with ADHD, depression, et cetera ad nauseum) can be traced back to the notion that working ever harder and denying oneself the simple pleasures in life can buy a spot in heaven. Sick, sick, sick. Remember the 1980's saying "He who dies with the most toys, wins"? The 21st century version of the Protestant/Calvinist Work Ethic pretty much reads "He who dies with the most toys, wins a place in heaven." If that's what it takes, count me out. And if that's the sort of people who will inhabit Heaven, it sounds more like Hell to me. This would certainly prove Sartre right when he said "Hell is other people".
School has been keeping me busy, but I'm still having a wonderful time at it! Each semester Hubby has expressed concern that I'm piling on too much at once and tells me "If I see you're starting to get overwhelmed I'm going to make you cut back on something." He's so sweet, but so far he hasn't had reason to worry. Okay, that one semester when I was still full-time at the casino and took a full-time course load was pretty rough, but I only needed to do that once to graduate when I did, and besides, my feeling is that you can do anything for sixteen weeks if you want it badly enough. Yes, I carry a full-time course load as a matter of routine now, but working only part-time makes that a whole lot easier. I may have a semester of hell coming up - if I try to graduate in May 2009 I'll have to take 15 hours for one semester. My alternative is to stick with my current course load and graduate in August 2009. Decisions, decisions. Either way I can start grad school in Fall 2009 (I think).
It's hard to believe we're starting to wrap things up for the semester, but it is getting to be about that time. So far this semester has gone pretty well, I think my grades are going to be solid. For the first couple of months I was sure that I was doing something wrong in all of my classes, certain that I had missed some crucial element, because they were too easy. I expected to work even harder once I started taking upper-division university level classes in my major. I finally said something about it to a group of colleagues, and they told me that's just the way it is. Apparently mastering the concepts and vocabulary of each subject is the really hard part, and that's the part you do in your lower division or core classes. Upper division classes are mostly devoted to utilizing those concepts. If that's truly the case (and I guess I can't truly relax until my grades this semester are final) then apparently the preparation I received at Red Rocks CC was even better than I thought it was!
I'll admit that I've had my nose so firmly against the grindstone that I've largely ignored the news, and therefore have had little to get pissed off about lately. Hubby is certainly helping to pick up my slack though. The other night we were watching TV and there was a news blurb on BBCAmerica which featured Our Fearless Leader claiming that war in Iraq had led to peace. Hubby turned to me and said "He picked the wrong 'P'. War didn't lead to 'peace', it led to 'profits'." See why I love this guy?!?
I did manage some downtime this week, and had a wonderful time with my friends M and S over wonderful food and cheap Box-O-Wine (my contribution to the party and it was quite well received, thank you). That evening took me right back to the discussion of the Protestant/Calvinist work ethic because that was just the sort of life-enriching experience that a good Protestant/Calvinist was supposed to forgo in his/her quest for salvation. Salvation from what? A life void of fun and friendship is already hell. We didn't solve all the problems of the world in one evening though - we had to leave some for the next gathering. This also takes me to the Margaret Wheatley book, because one section of this book says that (I'm paraphrasing here) overstressed, overscheduled people are likely to resort to strongly entrenched beliefs and behaviors simply because they don't have time or take time to think. They fail to consider their options or engage in dialogue. Instead they resort to reflexive, knee-jerk reactions programmed into them by schools, churches, families and society. This results in support for the status quo and the powers-that-be. What we need is for more and more people to stop, breathe and think. Such a simple action, when done by many, can change the world. Maybe we need to set aside a day for thought, meditation and reflection. Hmmm, something to propose at our next gathering!
Peace,
AuntieM
Monday, April 7, 2008
Playing catch-up
I've been way behind in lots of things, so lately I've devoted time to catching up on what I've missed. Unfortunately that has meant taking time away from other activites, such as this blog. Although I've not written in a while, it hasn't been far from my mind. So now it's time for me to play catch up on this blog.
An article on the Opinion page of the Rocky Mountain News dated 3/29/08 caught my attention to the point that I saved the article till I had time to write about it. The article was written by Jason Salzman and is titled "Bloggers, reveal yourselves". It criticizes the anonymity of blogs and bloggers, and calls for bloggers to reveal information about themselves and the motives behind their writings. The author asks "Who's behind the blog? What's the purpose? Does the blogger have a political bias? Is the blogger trying to practice journalism? If so, what are his or her standards?" When you get down to where the rubber meet the road, every living person has a political bias, whether they choose to share it with other or keep it private. Bloggers may be a little more forthcoming (!!!) than the average person when it comes to sharing their opinions, but we're not a special breed. And "practice journalism"? Am I simply being dense here? The author makes it sound like you need a special license to write, as if he's trying to make writing comparable to practing medicine or law. He also states "If the blog is anonymous or allows anonymous postings, it should explain why anonymity is allowed." It seems that Mr. Salzman is trying to hold bloggers to a higher standard than print journalists, who repeatedly get away with citing "an unnamed White House source" and take pride in going to jail instead of revealing their sources.
There are a lot of reasons why many bloggers, yours truly included, prefer to remain anonymous. My personal reason for writing under a nom de plume is at the time I started writing this blog I was also job-hunting. Since it is now quite common for employers to search the internet for the names of potential new employees, I didn't want to limit my chances of employment should I wind up applying to an employer that does not share my political views. Since then I've simply gotten used to it. I believe there are many bloggers out there who write anonymously for equally valid reasons, and Mr. Salzman should take that into consideration. Not all of us get paid to write, some of us do it as a labor of love.
However, in the interest of disclosure and blog transparency, I will make Jason Salzman and any other reader of this blog a very special offer: the chance to meet the one and only AuntieM live and in person. This momentous event will take place at the commencement ceremony for Red Rocks Community College, to be held on Saturday May 17 at 10am. Red Rocks CC is located on 6th Ave in Lakewood, Colorado and I'll be there come hell or high water, so anyone who wishes to come and introduce themselves is welcome to do so. I'll be the one in the red cap and gown.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. - Voltaire
Lately school has been keeping me pretty busy, but I have managed to find time for a few simple pleasures. High up on my personal list has been the run-up to the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica. In the mornings when I'm not awake enough to sing I find myself trying to use logic to determine the identity of the final Cylon model. Then I wake up and realize that's like using a hammer to pick a lock - logic is so not the right tool for me! Have you ever taken a personality test (I did, it was negative - ha ha) such as the Jung Typology test? They're interesting and informative. The test I took measured four different indicators: Logic vs. Intuition, Introvert vs. Extrovert, Thinking vs. Feeling and Judging vs. Perceiving. I had to take one for a Psych class a couple of semesters ago, and the test revealed that Logic and I are not even on speaking terms, but Intuition will never lead me astray. The results of that test made me reflect on past decisions and I have to say, each time I've made a decision based on logic I've lived to regret it, while every decision I've made based on intuition, no matter how half-assed it seemed at the time, has worked out very well. The test is available at http://www.humanmetrics.com/
and is quite fun. The only caveat I'll offer is that this test is like everything else - you get out of it what you put into it, so give each question the time and thought it deserves, don't just dash off whatever answer suits the moment. So what does any of this have to do with BSG? Not a frakking thing, but it was an interesting segue.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Funny, when I read this I thought of our dear president, who I just learned my best friend's son calls Shrub. I knew I liked that kid, even when he pissed his diaper while I was holding him all those years ago. She said she gave him a lecture on respecting the office even if the person in office doesn't deserve respect. Good thing she's the mom - I probably would have high-fived him and raised his allowance.
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. - Voltaire
Nuff said. I've never understood how "thou shalt not kill" is waived in times of war. Killing is a sin, but killing because your government gave you a uniform and rifle and told you to shoot someone is an act of heroism? I totally don't get that.
"Challenge your preconceptions, or they will challenge you." - Vulcan saying
There's a lot of truth behind this one. It's your prejudices and preconcieved notions about others that will trip you up unless you search them out and examine them ahead of time.
History is a pack of lies we play on the dead. - Voltaire
And history is also written by the winners. It is crucial to keep this in mind when studying history, because it will always be slanted to put the victors in the best light. I have repeatedly been astonished by what I didn't learn in history classes in public school but have since learned in college. For instance, did you know that in the 1920's and 1930's the US had its own eugenics program which involved mandatory sterilization of the mentally ill and developmentally disabled? No wonder the US took so long to enter in to WWII - it was hard for them to rationalize going to war against Hitler's Master Race when groups in the US were also working to "improve" the human race by getting rid of "defectives". Of course, the corporations already had a serious hold on many politicians, and too many companies were making way too much money in Germany for the US to go to war. Example: did you know that IBM built a computer and sent its people to Germany to install, operate and maintain it? Not so damning if that were the end of it, but this computer was specifically designed to track people sent to concentration camps. And IBM made a serious chunk of change for this project. Sigh.
When the rich wage war it's the poor who die. - Sartre
And that never changes, until we change it.
Peace,
AuntieM
An article on the Opinion page of the Rocky Mountain News dated 3/29/08 caught my attention to the point that I saved the article till I had time to write about it. The article was written by Jason Salzman and is titled "Bloggers, reveal yourselves". It criticizes the anonymity of blogs and bloggers, and calls for bloggers to reveal information about themselves and the motives behind their writings. The author asks "Who's behind the blog? What's the purpose? Does the blogger have a political bias? Is the blogger trying to practice journalism? If so, what are his or her standards?" When you get down to where the rubber meet the road, every living person has a political bias, whether they choose to share it with other or keep it private. Bloggers may be a little more forthcoming (!!!) than the average person when it comes to sharing their opinions, but we're not a special breed. And "practice journalism"? Am I simply being dense here? The author makes it sound like you need a special license to write, as if he's trying to make writing comparable to practing medicine or law. He also states "If the blog is anonymous or allows anonymous postings, it should explain why anonymity is allowed." It seems that Mr. Salzman is trying to hold bloggers to a higher standard than print journalists, who repeatedly get away with citing "an unnamed White House source" and take pride in going to jail instead of revealing their sources.
There are a lot of reasons why many bloggers, yours truly included, prefer to remain anonymous. My personal reason for writing under a nom de plume is at the time I started writing this blog I was also job-hunting. Since it is now quite common for employers to search the internet for the names of potential new employees, I didn't want to limit my chances of employment should I wind up applying to an employer that does not share my political views. Since then I've simply gotten used to it. I believe there are many bloggers out there who write anonymously for equally valid reasons, and Mr. Salzman should take that into consideration. Not all of us get paid to write, some of us do it as a labor of love.
However, in the interest of disclosure and blog transparency, I will make Jason Salzman and any other reader of this blog a very special offer: the chance to meet the one and only AuntieM live and in person. This momentous event will take place at the commencement ceremony for Red Rocks Community College, to be held on Saturday May 17 at 10am. Red Rocks CC is located on 6th Ave in Lakewood, Colorado and I'll be there come hell or high water, so anyone who wishes to come and introduce themselves is welcome to do so. I'll be the one in the red cap and gown.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. - Voltaire
Lately school has been keeping me pretty busy, but I have managed to find time for a few simple pleasures. High up on my personal list has been the run-up to the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica. In the mornings when I'm not awake enough to sing I find myself trying to use logic to determine the identity of the final Cylon model. Then I wake up and realize that's like using a hammer to pick a lock - logic is so not the right tool for me! Have you ever taken a personality test (I did, it was negative - ha ha) such as the Jung Typology test? They're interesting and informative. The test I took measured four different indicators: Logic vs. Intuition, Introvert vs. Extrovert, Thinking vs. Feeling and Judging vs. Perceiving. I had to take one for a Psych class a couple of semesters ago, and the test revealed that Logic and I are not even on speaking terms, but Intuition will never lead me astray. The results of that test made me reflect on past decisions and I have to say, each time I've made a decision based on logic I've lived to regret it, while every decision I've made based on intuition, no matter how half-assed it seemed at the time, has worked out very well. The test is available at http://www.humanmetrics.com/
and is quite fun. The only caveat I'll offer is that this test is like everything else - you get out of it what you put into it, so give each question the time and thought it deserves, don't just dash off whatever answer suits the moment. So what does any of this have to do with BSG? Not a frakking thing, but it was an interesting segue.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Funny, when I read this I thought of our dear president, who I just learned my best friend's son calls Shrub. I knew I liked that kid, even when he pissed his diaper while I was holding him all those years ago. She said she gave him a lecture on respecting the office even if the person in office doesn't deserve respect. Good thing she's the mom - I probably would have high-fived him and raised his allowance.
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. - Voltaire
Nuff said. I've never understood how "thou shalt not kill" is waived in times of war. Killing is a sin, but killing because your government gave you a uniform and rifle and told you to shoot someone is an act of heroism? I totally don't get that.
"Challenge your preconceptions, or they will challenge you." - Vulcan saying
There's a lot of truth behind this one. It's your prejudices and preconcieved notions about others that will trip you up unless you search them out and examine them ahead of time.
History is a pack of lies we play on the dead. - Voltaire
And history is also written by the winners. It is crucial to keep this in mind when studying history, because it will always be slanted to put the victors in the best light. I have repeatedly been astonished by what I didn't learn in history classes in public school but have since learned in college. For instance, did you know that in the 1920's and 1930's the US had its own eugenics program which involved mandatory sterilization of the mentally ill and developmentally disabled? No wonder the US took so long to enter in to WWII - it was hard for them to rationalize going to war against Hitler's Master Race when groups in the US were also working to "improve" the human race by getting rid of "defectives". Of course, the corporations already had a serious hold on many politicians, and too many companies were making way too much money in Germany for the US to go to war. Example: did you know that IBM built a computer and sent its people to Germany to install, operate and maintain it? Not so damning if that were the end of it, but this computer was specifically designed to track people sent to concentration camps. And IBM made a serious chunk of change for this project. Sigh.
When the rich wage war it's the poor who die. - Sartre
And that never changes, until we change it.
Peace,
AuntieM
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)