Reformed Boogers
Someone has asked what is so reformed about picking your nose and eating donuts. The answer is picking your nose fulfills the duties associated with the sixth commandment, and eating donuts violates it. Please see the Larger Catechism, Questions 135 and 136.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Top Things
I get a an email newsletter from Sixwise.com that often contains useful and interesting facts. Today's email had articles which shared some things I thought I would pass along. All the comments here are my own. I have provided links if you want to read the actual articles.
Picking your nose and eating it is good for your immune system. Your finger does a better job of cleaning out the boogers than a kleenex does and the bacteria in them helps to recolonize the intestinal tract and thereby boosts immue function. Next time you see your kids picking their noses, instead of scolding them for it, join them in picking your own and set the right example!
Six most common causes of automobile accidents:
1. Distracted Drivers -- looking at scenery, kids, rubbernecking, talking on the cell phone, playing with the CD player or radio.
2. Driver Fatigue
3. Drunk Driving
4. Speeding
5. Aggressive Driving -- don't be one, and if you see one, keep well back!
6. Bad Weather
The Six Most Unhealthy Foods You Should Avoid
1. Soda Pop -- I can't understand people who buy this stuff for their kids! One teaspoon of sugar has the ability to shut down your white blood cells for about 5 hours. Most cans of soda contain 10 teaspoons of sugar! The sugar alone is terrible and we won't even discuss the artificial sweetners, colors, and other things in them. If you want to celebrate a party and want a reasonable alternative to pop, get some juice and add unflavored and unsweetened carbonated spring water to it instead.
2. Potatoe Chips and French Fries -- They are saturated with acrylamide, a highly toxic and carcinogenic compound, and transfatty acids which destroy your health through oxidized cholesterol.
3. Doughnuts -- "When it comes to health, the only thing good about them is the hole," said Carla Wolper, nutritionist at the New York Obesity Research Center.
4. Commercially Made Baked Goods -- extremely high in transfats because they are made with margarines and hydrogenated vegetable oils in order to extend their shelf life.
5. Luncheon Meats and Hot Dogs -- Nitrates and Nitrites -- these can cause pancreatic cancer in those who eat them in large quantities.
6. Canned Soup -- I won't bring a lawsuit on myself by mentioning brand names, but read the labels. Most soups contain MSG and way more salt than is good for you.
The Six Worst Lifestyle Choices You Could Make
This belongs to the "well duh" category. But people indulge anyhow.
1. Overeating
2. Smoking
3. Drinking and Driving
4. Living on Fast Food
5. Not Exercising
6. Living with Stress (and not doing anything to deal with it)
On a more somber note, the recent murder of pregnant wife and mother, Liana White, in Edmonton, Alberta has highlighted the fact that murder has become the number one reason for maternal mortality in North America. This surprises and shocks many, including journalists, who like to think of pregnancy as a joyous time and the pregnant mother as being offlimits when it comes to harm. But then, we used to think that about babies in the womb...
I get a an email newsletter from Sixwise.com that often contains useful and interesting facts. Today's email had articles which shared some things I thought I would pass along. All the comments here are my own. I have provided links if you want to read the actual articles.
Picking your nose and eating it is good for your immune system. Your finger does a better job of cleaning out the boogers than a kleenex does and the bacteria in them helps to recolonize the intestinal tract and thereby boosts immue function. Next time you see your kids picking their noses, instead of scolding them for it, join them in picking your own and set the right example!
Six most common causes of automobile accidents:
1. Distracted Drivers -- looking at scenery, kids, rubbernecking, talking on the cell phone, playing with the CD player or radio.
2. Driver Fatigue
3. Drunk Driving
4. Speeding
5. Aggressive Driving -- don't be one, and if you see one, keep well back!
6. Bad Weather
The Six Most Unhealthy Foods You Should Avoid
1. Soda Pop -- I can't understand people who buy this stuff for their kids! One teaspoon of sugar has the ability to shut down your white blood cells for about 5 hours. Most cans of soda contain 10 teaspoons of sugar! The sugar alone is terrible and we won't even discuss the artificial sweetners, colors, and other things in them. If you want to celebrate a party and want a reasonable alternative to pop, get some juice and add unflavored and unsweetened carbonated spring water to it instead.
2. Potatoe Chips and French Fries -- They are saturated with acrylamide, a highly toxic and carcinogenic compound, and transfatty acids which destroy your health through oxidized cholesterol.
3. Doughnuts -- "When it comes to health, the only thing good about them is the hole," said Carla Wolper, nutritionist at the New York Obesity Research Center.
4. Commercially Made Baked Goods -- extremely high in transfats because they are made with margarines and hydrogenated vegetable oils in order to extend their shelf life.
5. Luncheon Meats and Hot Dogs -- Nitrates and Nitrites -- these can cause pancreatic cancer in those who eat them in large quantities.
6. Canned Soup -- I won't bring a lawsuit on myself by mentioning brand names, but read the labels. Most soups contain MSG and way more salt than is good for you.
The Six Worst Lifestyle Choices You Could Make
This belongs to the "well duh" category. But people indulge anyhow.
1. Overeating
2. Smoking
3. Drinking and Driving
4. Living on Fast Food
5. Not Exercising
6. Living with Stress (and not doing anything to deal with it)
On a more somber note, the recent murder of pregnant wife and mother, Liana White, in Edmonton, Alberta has highlighted the fact that murder has become the number one reason for maternal mortality in North America. This surprises and shocks many, including journalists, who like to think of pregnancy as a joyous time and the pregnant mother as being offlimits when it comes to harm. But then, we used to think that about babies in the womb...
Monday, July 18, 2005
I May Be Crazy...
... or at least most people would think so. At an age when most men and women are enjoying an empty nest and the freedom that goes with it, I have a new baby and find myself wanting to enjoy this experience yet again.
It is not unusual to have the term "miraculous" attached to what is really a normal event: birth. This could conceivably be an argument for the innate knowledge we have of God's existence and the fact that all babies are made by Him with us as the normal and usual means.
To have a baby when you are young feels miraculous when you think of how this complicated and wonderful being came into existence from the joining together of microscopic cells. It feels even more miraculous when the body that produced this fresh and perfectly formed little being happens to have endured a lot of wear and tear and shows it.
I don't know if it will happen, but a Baker's Dozen wouldn't be a bad thing for this mom.
... or at least most people would think so. At an age when most men and women are enjoying an empty nest and the freedom that goes with it, I have a new baby and find myself wanting to enjoy this experience yet again.
It is not unusual to have the term "miraculous" attached to what is really a normal event: birth. This could conceivably be an argument for the innate knowledge we have of God's existence and the fact that all babies are made by Him with us as the normal and usual means.
To have a baby when you are young feels miraculous when you think of how this complicated and wonderful being came into existence from the joining together of microscopic cells. It feels even more miraculous when the body that produced this fresh and perfectly formed little being happens to have endured a lot of wear and tear and shows it.
I don't know if it will happen, but a Baker's Dozen wouldn't be a bad thing for this mom.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Prescription Drugs are Bad For Your Health Say Doctors...
Remember, these are all M.D.'s who are saying this.
1. "The cause of most disease is in the poisonous drugs physicians superstitiously give in order to effect a cure."- Charles E. Page, M.D.
2. "Medicines are of subordinate importance because of their very nature they can only work symptomatically."- Hans Kusche, M.D.
3. "If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity"- O.W. Holmes, (Prof. of Med. Harvard University)
4. "Drug medications consists in employing, as remedies for disease, those things which produce disease in well persons. Its materia medica is simply a lot of drugs or chemicals or dye-stuffs-- in a word, poisons. All are incompatible with vital matter; all produce disease when brought in contact in any manner with the living; all are poisons."- R.T. Trail, M.D., in a two and one half hour lecture to members of congress and the medical profession, delivered at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
5. "Every drug increases and complicates the patient's condition."- Robert Henderson, M.D.
6. "Drugs never cure disease. They merely hush the voice of nature's protest, and pull down the danger signals she erects along the pathway of transgression. Any poison taken into the system has to be reckoned with later on even though it palliates present symptoms. Pain may disappear, but the patient is left in a worse condition, though unconscious of it at the time."- Daniel. H. Kress, M.D.
7. "The greatest part of all chronic disease is created by the suppression of acute disease by drug poisoning."- Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
8. "Every educated physician knows that most diseases are not appreciably helped by medicine."- Richard C. Cabot, M.D. (Mass. Gen. Hospital)
9. "Medicine is only palliative, for back of disease lies the cause, and this cause no drug can reach."- Wier Mitchel, M.D.
10. "The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine."- William Osler, M.D.
11. "Medical practice has neither philosophy nor common sense to recommend it. In sickness the body is already loaded with impurities. By taking drug-medicines more impurities are added, thereby the case is further embarrassed and harder to cure."- Elmer Lee, M.D., Past Vice President, Academy of Medicine.
12. "Our figures show approximately four and one half million hospital admissions annually due to the adverse reactions to drugs. Further, the average hospital patient has as much as thirty percent chance, depending how long he is in, of doubling his stay due to adverse drug reactions."- Milton Silverman, M.D. (Professor of Pharmacology, University of California)
13. "Why would a patient swallow a poison because he is ill, or take that which would make a well man sick."- L.F. Kebler, M.D.
14. "What hope is there for medical science to ever become a true science when the entire structure of medical knowledge is built around the idea that there is an entity called disease which can be expelled when the right drug is found?"- John H. Tilden, M.D.
15. "The necessity of teaching mankind not to take drugs and medicines, is a duty incumbent upon all who know their uncertainty and injurious effects;and the time is not far distant when the drug system will be abandoned."- Charles Armbruster, M. D.
16. "We are prone to thinking of drug abuse in terms of the male population and illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. It may surprise you to learn that a greater problem exists with millions of women dependent on legal prescription drugs."- Robert Mendelsohn, M.D
Remember, these are all M.D.'s who are saying this.
1. "The cause of most disease is in the poisonous drugs physicians superstitiously give in order to effect a cure."- Charles E. Page, M.D.
2. "Medicines are of subordinate importance because of their very nature they can only work symptomatically."- Hans Kusche, M.D.
3. "If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity"- O.W. Holmes, (Prof. of Med. Harvard University)
4. "Drug medications consists in employing, as remedies for disease, those things which produce disease in well persons. Its materia medica is simply a lot of drugs or chemicals or dye-stuffs-- in a word, poisons. All are incompatible with vital matter; all produce disease when brought in contact in any manner with the living; all are poisons."- R.T. Trail, M.D., in a two and one half hour lecture to members of congress and the medical profession, delivered at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
5. "Every drug increases and complicates the patient's condition."- Robert Henderson, M.D.
6. "Drugs never cure disease. They merely hush the voice of nature's protest, and pull down the danger signals she erects along the pathway of transgression. Any poison taken into the system has to be reckoned with later on even though it palliates present symptoms. Pain may disappear, but the patient is left in a worse condition, though unconscious of it at the time."- Daniel. H. Kress, M.D.
7. "The greatest part of all chronic disease is created by the suppression of acute disease by drug poisoning."- Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
8. "Every educated physician knows that most diseases are not appreciably helped by medicine."- Richard C. Cabot, M.D. (Mass. Gen. Hospital)
9. "Medicine is only palliative, for back of disease lies the cause, and this cause no drug can reach."- Wier Mitchel, M.D.
10. "The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine."- William Osler, M.D.
11. "Medical practice has neither philosophy nor common sense to recommend it. In sickness the body is already loaded with impurities. By taking drug-medicines more impurities are added, thereby the case is further embarrassed and harder to cure."- Elmer Lee, M.D., Past Vice President, Academy of Medicine.
12. "Our figures show approximately four and one half million hospital admissions annually due to the adverse reactions to drugs. Further, the average hospital patient has as much as thirty percent chance, depending how long he is in, of doubling his stay due to adverse drug reactions."- Milton Silverman, M.D. (Professor of Pharmacology, University of California)
13. "Why would a patient swallow a poison because he is ill, or take that which would make a well man sick."- L.F. Kebler, M.D.
14. "What hope is there for medical science to ever become a true science when the entire structure of medical knowledge is built around the idea that there is an entity called disease which can be expelled when the right drug is found?"- John H. Tilden, M.D.
15. "The necessity of teaching mankind not to take drugs and medicines, is a duty incumbent upon all who know their uncertainty and injurious effects;and the time is not far distant when the drug system will be abandoned."- Charles Armbruster, M. D.
16. "We are prone to thinking of drug abuse in terms of the male population and illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. It may surprise you to learn that a greater problem exists with millions of women dependent on legal prescription drugs."- Robert Mendelsohn, M.D
Monday, July 11, 2005
A Study in Contrasts
The recent terrorist attack in London has done a lot to highlight the contrasts between the American people and the British. When the Twin Towers fell in the 9/11 attack the amount of outrage, emotion, and, dare I say, hysteria, was very evident in the American people. The British people, on the other hand, maintained the stiff upper lip they are so famous for and were far more subdued, and again, dare I say, dignified in their reactions.
When I was a child, I quickly learned that if you were being picked on by a bully or teased, the best way to shorten the torture and prevent a reoccurance was to minimize reactions and assume a stoic attitude. The more you cried and wailed, the better the bully liked it and the more likely they were to try it again since they knew they could get a reaction. Maybe the Americans could learn a lesson from the British on the best way to deal with terrorism. In fact, we all could.
The recent terrorist attack in London has done a lot to highlight the contrasts between the American people and the British. When the Twin Towers fell in the 9/11 attack the amount of outrage, emotion, and, dare I say, hysteria, was very evident in the American people. The British people, on the other hand, maintained the stiff upper lip they are so famous for and were far more subdued, and again, dare I say, dignified in their reactions.
When I was a child, I quickly learned that if you were being picked on by a bully or teased, the best way to shorten the torture and prevent a reoccurance was to minimize reactions and assume a stoic attitude. The more you cried and wailed, the better the bully liked it and the more likely they were to try it again since they knew they could get a reaction. Maybe the Americans could learn a lesson from the British on the best way to deal with terrorism. In fact, we all could.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Friday, July 08, 2005
Life in the Slow Lane
Days keep whirring by with what seems like increasing rapidity. It is amazing to me that it is already four weeks since James made his debut into our family. He is starting to show signs of personhood and interaction which is a delight to everyone, and his little chicken-stick legs are starting to plump up as he puts on weight from all the freshly made mama milk he drinks.
At the same time, life has slowed down for me in a number of ways. Despite my best intentions, I have not started the kids doing anything by way of school work, other than encouraging them to continue to read books and do a few math drills here and there. My eldest boys at home have been working at the local tree nursery on and off, and today my eldest daughter at home is with her older sister, Trista, doing "girl" stuff like painting her nails, buying clothes, and getting her hair done. My tomboy just turned 14 and is growing up into a young lady. (sigh) That leaves only six kids at home and to many this would seem like a lot. But my house feels empty with only six. What it will feel like in a few years when more leave I don't like to think on.
Yesterday was "town day" as I went in to pick up my weekly supply of fresh raw milk from a local farmer who has a cow I own shares in. I also did my grocery shopping and some other errands. It took me over 8 hours to accomplish all this because of the numerous pauses needed to feed James and change his diaper. You know -- summer and babies rock. The lack of clients, no school, and no schedule that needs following allowed for a leisurely day spent doing things that needed doing, but without the time pressure put on me by the typical rest-of-the-year duties. I don't know if I would like this slow pace indefinitely or could even maintain it justifiably. In the back of my mind there is this nagging little voice that insists I am just being lazy and that there is a lot of work I need to do, but for today I intend to ignore it and just enjoy myself as I feed and play with James, interact with my Littles, and dab a bit at the housework.
Days keep whirring by with what seems like increasing rapidity. It is amazing to me that it is already four weeks since James made his debut into our family. He is starting to show signs of personhood and interaction which is a delight to everyone, and his little chicken-stick legs are starting to plump up as he puts on weight from all the freshly made mama milk he drinks.
At the same time, life has slowed down for me in a number of ways. Despite my best intentions, I have not started the kids doing anything by way of school work, other than encouraging them to continue to read books and do a few math drills here and there. My eldest boys at home have been working at the local tree nursery on and off, and today my eldest daughter at home is with her older sister, Trista, doing "girl" stuff like painting her nails, buying clothes, and getting her hair done. My tomboy just turned 14 and is growing up into a young lady. (sigh) That leaves only six kids at home and to many this would seem like a lot. But my house feels empty with only six. What it will feel like in a few years when more leave I don't like to think on.
Yesterday was "town day" as I went in to pick up my weekly supply of fresh raw milk from a local farmer who has a cow I own shares in. I also did my grocery shopping and some other errands. It took me over 8 hours to accomplish all this because of the numerous pauses needed to feed James and change his diaper. You know -- summer and babies rock. The lack of clients, no school, and no schedule that needs following allowed for a leisurely day spent doing things that needed doing, but without the time pressure put on me by the typical rest-of-the-year duties. I don't know if I would like this slow pace indefinitely or could even maintain it justifiably. In the back of my mind there is this nagging little voice that insists I am just being lazy and that there is a lot of work I need to do, but for today I intend to ignore it and just enjoy myself as I feed and play with James, interact with my Littles, and dab a bit at the housework.
Friday, July 01, 2005
Energy Medicine Used to Combat Malaria
Some of the methods used for combatting malaria in the past and present have often used methods that are toxic to the environment, people, and other animals as well as becoming ineffective over time due to the ability of the malarial parasite to become resistant to these methods. Well now it looks like there is a non-toxic and effective way of combatting malarial infections in people: magnetic force fields.
"Henry Lai, UW research professor of bioengineering, says the malaria parasite Plasmodium appears to lose vigor and can die when exposed to oscillating magnetic fields, which Lai thinks may cause tiny iron-containing particles inside the parasite to move in ways that damage the organism."
"If further studies confirm our findings and their application in animals and people, this would be an inexpensive and simple way to treat a disease that affects 500 million people every year, almost all in third-world countries," Lai said. According to the World Health Organization, as many as 2.7 million people die of malaria every year. Approximately 1 million of those are children.
Now isn't that exciting? A non-toxic and relatively harmless way of treating a deadly disease that affects a large proportion of the world's population? The researchers envision a mobile truck or room lined with magnets where people can sit and read for several hours while being treated. The remedy is simple and inexpensive, and the malarial parasites are not likely to develop a resistance to it. This is the sort of thing that I think is the wave of the future -- there are all kinds of non-toxic and healthy alternatives to the more destructive and toxic way we have of doing things that have yet to be discovered.
As an optimistic historic postmillenialist, I think we will see more and more of these types of answers to what ails us and our planet being developed in the future.
Some of the methods used for combatting malaria in the past and present have often used methods that are toxic to the environment, people, and other animals as well as becoming ineffective over time due to the ability of the malarial parasite to become resistant to these methods. Well now it looks like there is a non-toxic and effective way of combatting malarial infections in people: magnetic force fields.
"Henry Lai, UW research professor of bioengineering, says the malaria parasite Plasmodium appears to lose vigor and can die when exposed to oscillating magnetic fields, which Lai thinks may cause tiny iron-containing particles inside the parasite to move in ways that damage the organism."
"If further studies confirm our findings and their application in animals and people, this would be an inexpensive and simple way to treat a disease that affects 500 million people every year, almost all in third-world countries," Lai said. According to the World Health Organization, as many as 2.7 million people die of malaria every year. Approximately 1 million of those are children.
Now isn't that exciting? A non-toxic and relatively harmless way of treating a deadly disease that affects a large proportion of the world's population? The researchers envision a mobile truck or room lined with magnets where people can sit and read for several hours while being treated. The remedy is simple and inexpensive, and the malarial parasites are not likely to develop a resistance to it. This is the sort of thing that I think is the wave of the future -- there are all kinds of non-toxic and healthy alternatives to the more destructive and toxic way we have of doing things that have yet to be discovered.
As an optimistic historic postmillenialist, I think we will see more and more of these types of answers to what ails us and our planet being developed in the future.
Oh, Canada!
Ruler supreme,Who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our Dominion in Thy loving care.
Help us to find, O God, in Thee
A lasting rich reward,
As waiting for the better day,
We ever stand on guard.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
~.~
Unfortunately, the guards on the watchtower have been off duty for quite some time. Now we have officially sanctioned perversion in the form of same sex marriages. Christians will soon be persecuted for so-called "hate crimes" when they protest that homosexual acts are an affront to God.
Psalm 118 reminds us not to put our trust in princes or other forms of civil magistrates. And many of the Psalms remind us that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those that dwell therein and one day His dominions WILL spread from shore to shore. I look forward to that blessed day and in the meantime keep my head down and try to plow on with being faithful.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Tagged Again!
Carol tagged me and so here is the result:
Five Things I Miss from My Childhood
1. Childhood innocence -- Life was so much more simple when I was a child. I never knew a day of worry where my next meal would come from or if a roof would be over my head and the worst thing that could happen was getting a bad grade in school. Schools were relatively safe places to be, there was little violence and no drugs to speak of. In looking back, I had a happy life then though it wasn't until later that I realized how good I had it.
2. My grandparents. I have such happy memories of the love of my grandparents on both sides of the family. Grampy Hannah had an old car whose make and model I never knew, but which would be a prize entry today in a classic auto show. I remember spending the night at Grammy and Grampy Hannah's home in Attleboro and listening to the snap of the heater in the living room, sleeping on the fold out bed in the grey sofa that used to be in our home, exploring the fascinating cave of their closet that housed not only clothing, but Grammy's stock of Avon cosmetics, and eating bedtime snacks of cereal with brown sugar with Grampy, who was diabetic. I don't have many memories of Grampy Savoy as I was fairly young when he died and our visits were confined to two weeks every summer until he died when I was in grade 2, but I have a lot of memories of Grammy Savoy. I loved the old cast iron stove in the kitchen which not only baked the most delectable homemade bread, but also served to heat the house. And going up the the Miramachi region to visit with Grandmere and Grandpere Brideau was also a treat. Grampy Brideau played the fiddle and I remember watching him play while Great Uncle Tony step danced in their kitchen and even tried a few steps myself.
3. Speaking of the Miramachi, I enjoyed my visits there to see all the relatives on my mom's side of the family when I was little. The smell of salt water, fishing off the wharf at Burnt Church, picking wild strawberries at Uncle Cecil's, and hunting for wild kittens in Great Aunt Gladys's barn and then having boiled salmon and potatoes for supper along with homemade bread and molasses -- that was the stuff of happiness. Part of the allure was also the fact that every time we travelled to New Brunswick, I got a new coloring book and crayons or some sort of craft type thing to while away the time it took to drive there from Massachusetts.
4. The Good News Chapel. This was the Plymouth Brethren assembly that I grew up in. At the time I attended it, it was a fairly small but active congregation of whom everyone felt like family. I have fond memories of the people there as I was growing up. I also miss Camp Berea, which was run by the Assemblies. I had a few good summers attending camp there.
5. The farmhouse in Dundas that my Dad grew up in. At various points different relatives lived there -- Grammy and Grampy would open it in the summer and I remember going to the brook with Grampy Hannah to get water in order to prime the pump for the well in the kitchen. Then Uncle Harry and Aunt Pat lived there for a while. Aunt Mae and Uncle Sherman finally took it over for good and one of my favorite things was to spend a night there in the summertime. The second floor bedrooms had windows on two walls and a cross breeze would blow in and when we built our present home, I insisted on windows on two walls for our bedrooms. The sight of the filmy white curtains billowing in the cool breeze, the feeling of generational continuity that permeated the house, the apple orchard, trips to the outhouse, the homey and comforting scent of hay in the old barn all form a three dimensional picture that still serves to give me pleasure when I think of it now.
Of course, things tend to assume a rosier glow in retrospect than what I probably experienced at the time I was actually going through it. And trips down memory lane are more fun for the person experiencing them than they are for outsiders who are only reading about them. Even so, I had fun doing this. Thanks, Carol for the few minutes of pleasure this gave me.
Remove the blog at No.1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog’s name in the No.5 spot. I've linked to their posts on childhood, with the URLs for you as well:
1. Black Currant Jam http://blackcurantjam.blogspot.com/2005/06/meme-5-things-i-miss.html
2. Allthings2all http://allthings2all.blogspot.com/2005/06/i-wanted-green-hair.html
3. Tales of a Farmwife http://alynnmusic.blogspot.com/2005/06/my-childhood.html
4. Carol's Storybook http://parentingdecisions.com/blog/2005_06.html#003616
5. Reformed Musings http://www.knoxknoxwhosthere.blogspot.com
And pick four people. Thanks!
Carol tagged me and so here is the result:
Five Things I Miss from My Childhood
1. Childhood innocence -- Life was so much more simple when I was a child. I never knew a day of worry where my next meal would come from or if a roof would be over my head and the worst thing that could happen was getting a bad grade in school. Schools were relatively safe places to be, there was little violence and no drugs to speak of. In looking back, I had a happy life then though it wasn't until later that I realized how good I had it.
2. My grandparents. I have such happy memories of the love of my grandparents on both sides of the family. Grampy Hannah had an old car whose make and model I never knew, but which would be a prize entry today in a classic auto show. I remember spending the night at Grammy and Grampy Hannah's home in Attleboro and listening to the snap of the heater in the living room, sleeping on the fold out bed in the grey sofa that used to be in our home, exploring the fascinating cave of their closet that housed not only clothing, but Grammy's stock of Avon cosmetics, and eating bedtime snacks of cereal with brown sugar with Grampy, who was diabetic. I don't have many memories of Grampy Savoy as I was fairly young when he died and our visits were confined to two weeks every summer until he died when I was in grade 2, but I have a lot of memories of Grammy Savoy. I loved the old cast iron stove in the kitchen which not only baked the most delectable homemade bread, but also served to heat the house. And going up the the Miramachi region to visit with Grandmere and Grandpere Brideau was also a treat. Grampy Brideau played the fiddle and I remember watching him play while Great Uncle Tony step danced in their kitchen and even tried a few steps myself.
3. Speaking of the Miramachi, I enjoyed my visits there to see all the relatives on my mom's side of the family when I was little. The smell of salt water, fishing off the wharf at Burnt Church, picking wild strawberries at Uncle Cecil's, and hunting for wild kittens in Great Aunt Gladys's barn and then having boiled salmon and potatoes for supper along with homemade bread and molasses -- that was the stuff of happiness. Part of the allure was also the fact that every time we travelled to New Brunswick, I got a new coloring book and crayons or some sort of craft type thing to while away the time it took to drive there from Massachusetts.
4. The Good News Chapel. This was the Plymouth Brethren assembly that I grew up in. At the time I attended it, it was a fairly small but active congregation of whom everyone felt like family. I have fond memories of the people there as I was growing up. I also miss Camp Berea, which was run by the Assemblies. I had a few good summers attending camp there.
5. The farmhouse in Dundas that my Dad grew up in. At various points different relatives lived there -- Grammy and Grampy would open it in the summer and I remember going to the brook with Grampy Hannah to get water in order to prime the pump for the well in the kitchen. Then Uncle Harry and Aunt Pat lived there for a while. Aunt Mae and Uncle Sherman finally took it over for good and one of my favorite things was to spend a night there in the summertime. The second floor bedrooms had windows on two walls and a cross breeze would blow in and when we built our present home, I insisted on windows on two walls for our bedrooms. The sight of the filmy white curtains billowing in the cool breeze, the feeling of generational continuity that permeated the house, the apple orchard, trips to the outhouse, the homey and comforting scent of hay in the old barn all form a three dimensional picture that still serves to give me pleasure when I think of it now.
Of course, things tend to assume a rosier glow in retrospect than what I probably experienced at the time I was actually going through it. And trips down memory lane are more fun for the person experiencing them than they are for outsiders who are only reading about them. Even so, I had fun doing this. Thanks, Carol for the few minutes of pleasure this gave me.
Remove the blog at No.1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog’s name in the No.5 spot. I've linked to their posts on childhood, with the URLs for you as well:
1. Black Currant Jam http://blackcurantjam.blogspot.com/2005/06/meme-5-things-i-miss.html
2. Allthings2all http://allthings2all.blogspot.com/2005/06/i-wanted-green-hair.html
3. Tales of a Farmwife http://alynnmusic.blogspot.com/2005/06/my-childhood.html
4. Carol's Storybook http://parentingdecisions.com/blog/2005_06.html#003616
5. Reformed Musings http://www.knoxknoxwhosthere.blogspot.com
And pick four people. Thanks!
Monday, June 27, 2005
Book Finds
Today I had to drive Ben into town to take his provincial science exam. During the two hours he was writing the exam, I went and bought myself a few crochet hooks. Then James decided a snack was in order so out to the car I went to feed him and change his enormously poopy diaper. I don't know where he puts it all, but it poured forth like yellow lava from the diaper and through his sleeper.
When I finished cleaning up the mess I still had over an hour to kill before needing to get Ben. So I drove to a thrift store I don't usually patronize and proceeded to splurge $3.50 on books. I came home with:
The Complete Father Brown Treasury by G. K. Chesterton
The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas (which weighs about 5 lbs.!)
A boxed set of the last three "Anne" books by Lucy Maud Montgomery (so my girls can have their own copies)
A complete Glycemic Index in paperback
The American Way of Birth by Jessica Mitford
Don't ask me where I am going to put these treasures as my shelves are already overflowing!
Today I had to drive Ben into town to take his provincial science exam. During the two hours he was writing the exam, I went and bought myself a few crochet hooks. Then James decided a snack was in order so out to the car I went to feed him and change his enormously poopy diaper. I don't know where he puts it all, but it poured forth like yellow lava from the diaper and through his sleeper.
When I finished cleaning up the mess I still had over an hour to kill before needing to get Ben. So I drove to a thrift store I don't usually patronize and proceeded to splurge $3.50 on books. I came home with:
The Complete Father Brown Treasury by G. K. Chesterton
The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas (which weighs about 5 lbs.!)
A boxed set of the last three "Anne" books by Lucy Maud Montgomery (so my girls can have their own copies)
A complete Glycemic Index in paperback
The American Way of Birth by Jessica Mitford
Don't ask me where I am going to put these treasures as my shelves are already overflowing!
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Changes on the Comment Front
I got rid of the comment server that I was using. That means all the comments from before are missing off my blog, but that's ok. I have a record of them in my email.
I don't know how to put up a thing that says "comments" at the end of a post, but if you do want to say something, please click on the time stamp at the end of the post and you can post your comments on blogger's comment thingy.
And yeah, Jerry, you were right. That is a Nine Inch Nails song that Johnny Cash was singing. Here's some commentary that came with the link that I received:
Johnny Cash video rattles viewers
By Steve Beard
One of the surprising hits on Johnny Cash's lastest album When The Man Comes Around is his rendition of "Hurt" written by the dark and brooding Trent Reznor of the hard rock band Nine Inch Nails. I hurt myself today/ To see if I still feel/ I focus on the pain/ The only thing that's real, Cash sings. The needle tears a hole/ The old familiar sting/ Try to kill it all away/ But I remember everything--a poignant reminder of his dark years in the 1960s.
"I think 'Hurt' is the best anti-drug song I ever heard," said Cash. "It's a song about a man's pain and what we're capable of doing to ourselves and the possibility that we don't have to do that anymore. I could relate to that from the very beginning."
He told USA Today, "I would have written something like that in the '60s, if I had been that good."
When the video for the song was released it became a fascinating cross-over hit, being played on MTV, VH-1, and CMT. Director Mark Romanek spliced together one of the most vivid and moving visual portraits of Cash's illustrative career. Footage was gleaned from his early years, prison concerts, walking through the Holy Land, and hopping a boxcar. Cash is shown sitting behind a piano as well as strumming his guitar in his all-so-familiar black apparel. Interspersed throughout the video is the backdrop of the famous House of Cash museum in Tennessee--sitting in disrepair, closed to the public since 1995. The museum serves as a metaphor for Cash's physical condition-which is weak and in pain.
Johnny is seated behind a grand table spread with a generous feast of meat and fish. With trembling hand, he pours a glass of red wine over the food as he sings, You could have it all/ My empire of dirt/ I will let you down/ I will make you hurt.
The face of Jesus appears; first, in a portrait and later in footage taken from Gospel Road, a movie on the life of Christ that Cash produced with his own finances in the 1970s. The graphic crucifixion scene is interspliced with concert footage and cheering prison crowds in order to poignantly emphasize that all of humanity carries the responsibility of Christ's death. Never before in the history of music videos has there been such a rattling reminder of youth, aging, and the sometimes agonizing trek through the twilight years.
"Mortality is a very unusual topic for this medium," Romanek told Rolling Stone. "But I ascribe most of the power to the Johnny Cash-ness of it all."
Trent Reznor was in the studio with Zach de la Rocha, the former lead singer of Rage Against the Machine, when he received the video. "By the end I was really on the verge of tears," said Reznor. "At the end of it, there was just dead silence. There was, like, this moist clearing of our throats and then, 'Uh, OK, let's get some coffee.'"
Cash's producer Rick Rubin cried when he saw it for the first time. "I spoke to (U2 singer) Bono and he compared what Johnny is doing now to what Elvis Presley did in the 1950s," Rubin told the Associated Press. "Then, Elvis represented a new youth culture and it shocked and terrified everyone because culture wasn't about youth before him. Now we live in a youth culture and Johnny Cash is showing the experience of a much older generation. It's just as radical."
Life, death, drugs, Jesus, pain, joy, disappointment, and success were all wrapped together in that video-the essential elements of Johnny Cash's career and life's work. "Life isn't just for living, it's for singing about," he wrote in the liner notes for his 1977 album The Rambler. "Loneliness is real, the pain of loss is real, the fulfillment of love is real, the thrill of adventure is real, and to put it in the song lyrics and sing about it-after all, isn't that what a country singer/writer is supposed to do, write and sing of reality?"
I got rid of the comment server that I was using. That means all the comments from before are missing off my blog, but that's ok. I have a record of them in my email.
I don't know how to put up a thing that says "comments" at the end of a post, but if you do want to say something, please click on the time stamp at the end of the post and you can post your comments on blogger's comment thingy.
And yeah, Jerry, you were right. That is a Nine Inch Nails song that Johnny Cash was singing. Here's some commentary that came with the link that I received:
Johnny Cash video rattles viewers
By Steve Beard
One of the surprising hits on Johnny Cash's lastest album When The Man Comes Around is his rendition of "Hurt" written by the dark and brooding Trent Reznor of the hard rock band Nine Inch Nails. I hurt myself today/ To see if I still feel/ I focus on the pain/ The only thing that's real, Cash sings. The needle tears a hole/ The old familiar sting/ Try to kill it all away/ But I remember everything--a poignant reminder of his dark years in the 1960s.
"I think 'Hurt' is the best anti-drug song I ever heard," said Cash. "It's a song about a man's pain and what we're capable of doing to ourselves and the possibility that we don't have to do that anymore. I could relate to that from the very beginning."
He told USA Today, "I would have written something like that in the '60s, if I had been that good."
When the video for the song was released it became a fascinating cross-over hit, being played on MTV, VH-1, and CMT. Director Mark Romanek spliced together one of the most vivid and moving visual portraits of Cash's illustrative career. Footage was gleaned from his early years, prison concerts, walking through the Holy Land, and hopping a boxcar. Cash is shown sitting behind a piano as well as strumming his guitar in his all-so-familiar black apparel. Interspersed throughout the video is the backdrop of the famous House of Cash museum in Tennessee--sitting in disrepair, closed to the public since 1995. The museum serves as a metaphor for Cash's physical condition-which is weak and in pain.
Johnny is seated behind a grand table spread with a generous feast of meat and fish. With trembling hand, he pours a glass of red wine over the food as he sings, You could have it all/ My empire of dirt/ I will let you down/ I will make you hurt.
The face of Jesus appears; first, in a portrait and later in footage taken from Gospel Road, a movie on the life of Christ that Cash produced with his own finances in the 1970s. The graphic crucifixion scene is interspliced with concert footage and cheering prison crowds in order to poignantly emphasize that all of humanity carries the responsibility of Christ's death. Never before in the history of music videos has there been such a rattling reminder of youth, aging, and the sometimes agonizing trek through the twilight years.
"Mortality is a very unusual topic for this medium," Romanek told Rolling Stone. "But I ascribe most of the power to the Johnny Cash-ness of it all."
Trent Reznor was in the studio with Zach de la Rocha, the former lead singer of Rage Against the Machine, when he received the video. "By the end I was really on the verge of tears," said Reznor. "At the end of it, there was just dead silence. There was, like, this moist clearing of our throats and then, 'Uh, OK, let's get some coffee.'"
Cash's producer Rick Rubin cried when he saw it for the first time. "I spoke to (U2 singer) Bono and he compared what Johnny is doing now to what Elvis Presley did in the 1950s," Rubin told the Associated Press. "Then, Elvis represented a new youth culture and it shocked and terrified everyone because culture wasn't about youth before him. Now we live in a youth culture and Johnny Cash is showing the experience of a much older generation. It's just as radical."
Life, death, drugs, Jesus, pain, joy, disappointment, and success were all wrapped together in that video-the essential elements of Johnny Cash's career and life's work. "Life isn't just for living, it's for singing about," he wrote in the liner notes for his 1977 album The Rambler. "Loneliness is real, the pain of loss is real, the fulfillment of love is real, the thrill of adventure is real, and to put it in the song lyrics and sing about it-after all, isn't that what a country singer/writer is supposed to do, write and sing of reality?"
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