Starbucks Coffee Shop - Blueberry Bar

Since I don't eat wheat, it was a shock for me to see Starbucks in Ontario selling donuts with their coffee. It seems that Canadians cannot get away from their favourite food fifth column.




If you don't think that donuts are bad for you, perhaps you are a bit of a carb addict yourself. In any event, I enjoy the Starbucks blueberry bar, and when I don't see it on display, I do ask for it and have not been disappointed in Ontario, yet! So far, I have not detected any digestive problems associates with any wheat lurking within the bars. I do believe that blueberries are cancer fighters, and that oats are good for your heart. The coffee contains caffiene, which helps keep me alert, but I think it dries me out a bit, so I also like a glass of cranberry juice with my meals.

Creating a Nurturing and Natural Environment for Health and Self Esteem

YOU KNOW THAT IS GOT TO BE BETTER FOR YOU

A RURAL DEVON VIEW NEAR HONITON

My hat is raised this morning to Jules Petty, the environmental scientist, for the article, "The greening of healthcare" to be found in the December 22nd, 2007 issue of The New Scientist ... I am just catching up with my science reading!

Essentially, by exercising, we improve our self esteem and mood, and by relating to nature we improve our self esteem and mood. If we place ourselves near urban environments or remind ourselves of city things, we lose out on our self esteem and mood. Since self esteem and mood are essential for our health, we kill slowly ourselves if we live in urban environments. That's it in a nutshell. So what do we do about it? Perhaps, something like honeycomb housing design would be better than the straight boring roman road designs we now have.

We can design our human habitats much better. Tessellar design is one option. But, the main thing is that we recreate our urban environments in a way that brings nature to us rather than living a slow death of despair and low self esteem.

Life Consequences of Misunderstood or Only Partially Understood Laws

NYC SKYLINE WAS CHANGED BY EVENTS

We might ask who was ultimately responsible for the events of 911 in New York, and if we do we are presenting the question from the space-time world of classical physics. The tendency is to think that something was done to America, rather than to think that America attracted a negative force. The events of 911 were America's wake up call. There are those that see such damning events as arising through what is referred to as the secret. This approach suggests that American's attracted their own karma or destructive force. In a way this is true, but we do not ultimately know whether the force operated from with America or came from outside. There are some who write very interesting material on their own personal experience with the secret, the laws of attraction. In contrast, I, then proposed my ideas of 'the laws of association,' which fall within a cause-effect dynamic rather than an acausal 'quantum' or 'semi-mythological' dynamic. This was my response to the notion that your mind has to be tuned into the positive vibrations of the universe, which I think is correct. The problem still remains that the distribution of benefits is hierarchical, very uneven, because the skills of the the tuning instruments in our respective brains is distributed unevenly! In other words, even if the 'mythological' laws of attraction do work, some people are better at initiating them than others because they have brains that are more easily tuned to the positive vibrations.

The laws of attraction assume that events happen because of something that you do to attract them. The laws of association assume that events happen because of something that you do to associate yourself with the sources of events. In many ways, the laws of attraction and the laws of association are very similar, but there are subtle differences. The laws of association are closer to laws that you can research and can verify by means of the scientific method. You need science. The laws of attraction are not yet laws that you can verify by the scientific method. You need faith. The laws of attraction are not verifiable because they are based on a wonderful mythology of waves with agents at the source of the waves who are actually working with or on you for whatever reason, but mythology, nevertheless, has its value.

As an aside, when I write my blogs, I am trying to lead the reader down a pathway, a dynamic of thought, that the reader might not otherwise follow. Initially, the reader may or may not be attracted to the title of my blog page. By associating with the page, the reader will learn how to think and this will be an importance step towards independence and freer movement of thought and living. My ideas will attempt to point in directions that will give greater freedom in terms of moving towards a longer length of life. This approach emphasizes the economics of the life cycle that are often forgotten. If you extend your life by living longer, then you do the impossible. What you do not want to do is attract death by associating with those things that increase your probability of dying. If you engage in risky behaviour of any sort, you may attract forces of association, as well, as attraction. Now that's a thought, so be careful.

We forget economics at our peril for it is the economic laws that really govern our universe and not the physical laws. The beauty of the economic laws is that they include us and our dynamic in ways that we would not expect. The laws of economics are all powerful as the Fed is just now realizing as it tries to bring America back from the brink of disaster. What Americans do not realize is that terrorism has as its most effective weapons, the seeds of destruction with the agent of destruction arising from within the victim's own tendencies of excess and addiction. If America is addicted to war then planting the seeds of war will ultimately lead to its destruction. Yes, the seeds of war have been planted, but they are to be understood as coming from within the weaknesses of the US economy and its inherent social instability. Watch the series OZ about the Ozwald maximum security prison to see what I mean.

The seeds of war that are planted by terrorists aim a redirecting destructive tendency of Americans towards addictive processes that can be easily manipulated and lead to unpredictable social consequences. Inflation, debt, doubts about commercial trust, monopolization of resources, excessive ownership, excessive consumption, wasting of energy and fragile resources such as wild animals, dominance of the military sector of the economy, inward migration beyond absorptive capacity, mismanaged or misguided fiscal policy, excessive dependency on imports, and so on. Remember that how we treat our animals is a reflection of our nature. We do best to move away from a violent nature and treat our animals with the love and respect they can thrive on.

Figuring it all out, Coincidence, Fate, Luck, God, or the Source of Being

A HARE'S BREATH

by

AW LAKE

What is the true nature of our world, or is it even a world. Who or what governs it. I am never really sure whether my friends think that it is a rightful preooccupation for anyone to try to figure it all out. That has been the bane of serious speculation through the ages. "Who are you to speculate about such unknowable matters?" "What is your authority?" Even worse, people who did come up with new ideas were called heretics. They were stoned, burned at the stake, poisoned, clubbed to death, shot, to name but a few of the awful outcomes.

The fact is, however, that normal people can't help wondering, and even those like Richard Dawkins, the evolutionist biologist, who preaches the notion of God 'the delusion.' Well, he seems to protest too much! I wonder at his keen interest in this greatest of mysteries. Certainly, the world is moved by the forces of evolution, and most of us, but not all, are now outside of the denial of that. Visits by children to websites that tell us lots about dinosaurs. They prove in a verifiable way that there is a longer earthly history than the Bible allows. Those that think otherwise need to 'Wake up!' as Jesus Christ said. The issue is not whether the Bible is the word of God, but whether we recognize Jesus as evolution, and evidence of evolution as Dr. RM Bucke, of the London, Ontario in the late 1800s, insane assylum would have us believe.

The fact is that Walt Whitman, who lived in Dr. Bucke's time believed in human evolution and believed that he was, himself, part of human evolution. Whitman did things on the battlefield of the American civil war that no humans would normally do. He actually went out onto the battle field and saved lives without fear for his own personal death. Would that the arab terrorists were more like him, and went about saving lives. They would give their cause a tremendous boost if they did.

It is interesting that terrorists take lives rather than saving them. They damage the causes that they are fighting for because they give others the urge to destroy the civilizations from which they have come. If bin Ladin's plan is to destroy Saudi Arabia then he is succeeding. He would do much better giving medicine to dying children.

I am keenly interested in learning about human evolution.

People often ask me, "Do you believe in God?" I find this question often reflects a bias on the part of the questioner. It would not be appropriate to answer, "Whether or not I believe in God is my personal matter. Go mind your own business." My answer is "Yes! I believe in God, and God believes in me!"

Without some form of personal experience no one believes in God. It is important that a person know that they have been visited by God in some meaningful way. If someone said that they had been visited by God, who in some way opened up a communication channel, I would want to know more about the nature of that visit was and more about the nature of the communication channel.

I would not dismiss anyone's claims outright.

Through history, people have claimed that God has opened up communication channels for them. Such people ended frequently up in insane insylums or were killed by others because they were outspoken about something extraordinary that they could not understand. What we have is a failure to communicate. One has to wonder why God fails to communicate more effectively and we can only speculate about the methods that would be used if ever.

In the period recorded by the Bible, Abraham came down from the mountain with the ten commandments written on tablets of stone. The strength of the Bible is that it is the collection of very ancient writings. Many communities may have have had similar experiences, but they did not have writing and could not communicate their experiences for later generations. The Romans did what they could to destroy competing civilizations and any written materials that these civilizations possessed.

The Romans destroyed the civilization based from Carthage; they destroyed the civilization based from Alexandria; they destroyed the civilization based from Mona, Britain; they destroyed the civilization based from Jerusalem. They absorbed the civilization based from Athens. Because the Romans were so destrucive of other civilizations, they impoverished the world in ways that we can only begin to imagine. What we have received down the ages is a very narrow Roman slant on history and civilization. We know too little about the Carthagean, Alexandrian, Monian, and Jewish civilizations and experiences. Western culture, based dominantly on the Roman civilization, is a fragment of what it could have been. Our potential Western heritage was destroyed by the aggressive war like Roman culture.

The crusades helped to regained some culture that perculated through from North Africa into Spain, eventually, to spawn the Renaissance several hundred years later. That was a very slow process and did nothing to redress the losses, for example, to replace the pharmacopea of the Alexandrian civilization that would have given us medicine and would have resulted in more rapid population growth and possibily the escape from the spread of disease that wiped out so many people. Some of the worst of the great plagues might have been avoided! We might have had a knowledge of microbes and germs many generations earlier.

In any event the improverishment of knowledge, that the Roman dominance of the continent caused, resulted in its own declining influence and eventually in the crusades which were the first serious and well financed attempts to recover lost knowledge.

The crusaders may have been the one's to rediscover penicillin, but how was that information lost.

Is the Profit Motive for New Therapeutic Chemical Entities Correct?

WUH LAX WAS SURPRISED AT ME !

Who said that the profit motive works? If the profit motive worked, we would have saved billions of lives of people in developing countries who have died of disease. As it is, the children have died and we are responsible for not pushing our governments in Western economise to act more decisively and more effectively. I can think of no better solution to many economic problems that an over expansion of the therapeutic research at government expense ... forget the private sector. It has failed to deliver the goods to the third world. Why should we help the third world fight disease?

That to me is almost a stupid question, but my children tell me not to use the word stupid, so I will say that it is an insane question. Are we insane not to give everything we have got to eradicating the problems of the third world. I think the whole of Western Civilization is pretty damn insane not to. we talk about being Christians, and we talk about being Islamic and yet we have so many people dying from disease in third world countries that we should all be thoroughly ashamed. Disease is every one's problem.

The West is so caught up in its struggle against cancer that it has forgotten the many more dying of diseases that we can actually cure. And, incidentally in the process we may just get to grips with some of the disease issues in the West that are connected to those of third world countries.

But, the insane part of this whole matter is the patent system that we are using to calm our feelings of guilt. No, our governments should fund at public expense massive amounts of research that is presently going into weapons of mass destruction and bullets, not to mention bombs and tanks. To not help our third world countries fight disease is insane economics.

Why does Bill Gates have to show our people the right direction? He has done enough to create the microcomputer revolution. Three cheers for Bill and his lovely wife! Our governments can lower interest rates for the banks, but they can't fund research into disease solutions. That is insanity at its worst and we are all part of that insanity. Help the people of the world. Help the children who are dying by helping to eradicate the diseases around the world that ravage their populations. Our globe is getting smaller and smaller and we need to think of each other as being like close neighbours, giving our neighbours a helping hand.

Are Typhoid Fever and Cystic Fibrosis Related?

SIDMOUTH MOON

There is a mystery why so many people in Europe have the cystic fibrosis gene. Few people realize that they even have it or that they may already have children that have the gene, or that they may conceive children with cystic fibrosis. Do the math. If one in twenty have the gene then so many people who are married have the gene, and so many of the children that they have will have the gene. It's all down to probabilities, and chances are that you won't have a cystic fibrosis child because the math is working in that way, but only the math.

Scientists are puzzled as to why so many people in Europe have the cystic fibrosis gene. It means that almost every family has had or will have the gene at some time. Again, do the math. This means that cystic fibrosis is everyone's problem and everyone should help those with cystic fibrosis and everyone should pay to see that the disease is given top priority and eliminated as problem. Right!

Well, no, not quite, and the reason may be that expression of the cystic fibrosis gene was in the past what saved a significantly large segment of the population. In other words, the people with cystic fibrosis may have survived a disease that other succumbed to. In other words, having cystic fibrosis may have saved those in the population from something worse. What could be worse?

Well, one possibility is typhoid. Read about that in an article in Science News. This leads me to the conclusion that there are really two problems that society needs to deal with and solving one may help the other. In other words, it may be that if we find a solution to the disease of cystic fibrosis we need to have a solution to typhoid fever. Everyone can get typhoid fever. Right! But, no! Wrong! If you think that everyone can get typhoid fever maybe you have not understood what I am saying. In the end, we may need to sort out both diseases and thus combine the research efforts. Fund typhoid fever research while you fund cystic fibrosis research. Such combined research works in all our favours because we may all have the same problem of the expression, or non expression, of the cystic fibrosis gene. We may all need to have safe cystic fibrosis to escape typhoid fever! Or, perhaps you think typhoid is not really a problem. I would chew on that one if I were you and take a longer coffee break for your creative juices. I wonder what the other diseases might be that this research needs to unearth.

Think Positively in All That you Do - A Gitomer World

DID YOU EAT MY MOTHER ?

One of the most positive individuals to hit the book stands in recent years, deposing Norman Vincent Peale, is an author going by the name of Jeffery Gitomer. What makes Gitomer so absolutely appealing is that he thinks that one should work and that working hard is good for you. It may even help you create a positive attitude in all that you do. Gitomer says that watching the news is not a great way to develop a positive attitude. Turn the TV off and study how you can really help other people.

The Psychology of Handwriting

Your handwriting can reveal many things about you that you are probably unaware. The science of handwriting analysis has progressed significantly. Practitioners of analytical techniques offer their services at a price, so the science has grown up from a past time to a full fledged approach to seeing within human personality. The fact is that everything that we do can be analysed forensically. The results may not be accurate or they may hit spot on in ways that get to the deeper sources of illness and physical conditions as well as personality traits. One has to be careful with claims that handwriting analysis is all powerful. It is still a very young science.

I remember my father, a minister of religion, who visited the sick in a local insane assylum telling me in the 1960's that handwriting analysis was being used to understand mental illness. He said that they were experimenting with a therapy to reach the deeper parts of the brain by training 'mentally ill' people how to improve their handwriting. Apparently, just the training in handwriting arts could result in more organized thought and behaviour at very deep psychological levels.

A french Canadian student of psychology who I worked with in a summer job at Weston's Bakery in Longueuil, Quebec who would tease me that every motion I made could be analysed by a trained psychologist and that I was forever giving off clues about my weaknesses that a trained person could understand and use to recommend therapy, i.e. that I was strange and need help.

Your handwriting does let others know whether you are under stress or likely to be ill.

Yarning - A Verbal Art

Yarning

Telling a sea yarn is an ancient skill and pasttime. We have many of the stories that were told by the many boys and men sailing seas during the four hundred years leading up to the twentieth century. Mariners continue to spin yarns as the while away hours and days.

Spending many months on the waves of vast oceans with many hours confined to vessel with a group of sailors provided an environment in which the imagination grabbed hold. The many hours of sailing would pass into days, the days into weeks, the weeks into months, and occasionally the months into years before a sailor was reunited with his family.

Often, the best yarns were about actual events on board boat. A vessel at sea was a dangerous unpredictable place. In the West end of English Channel storms coming off the Atlantic would regularly blow up suddenly bringing waves over twenty feet.

Inevitably, there would be monster storms with wave over thirty feet, and occasionally during and after the hurricane season, there would be waves within waves within waves within waves within waves, coming from a multitude of directions. In a hurricane there would be a depression, there would be waves coming from one direction for a period and there would be waves coming from another direction for a period all caused by the devastating force of unbelievably strong winds that set currents in motion all across the Atlantic to die down, no one knows where.

The job of the Captain was to use his complete authority in order to have all stations of his command operating smoothly and as a concerted team. In rough weather, the slap of the large waves against the sides of the vessel often tipped it violently forward and back, and from one side to another.

The larger the vessel the greater could be the opposite motion as a wave left a clift edge over which the ship would tumble, not always straight down, but frequently at an angle.

A sailor would develop sea legs that would adjust his balance automatically to the motion of the boat, however, his body could not know the complex patterns of the sea waves slamming the ship up and down, over and about.

My Own Yarn

I once sailed the Atlantic in the proud vessel, the Empress of England. This cruise liner had sailed from Montreal many a time and was used to the waters of the Eastern seaboard. My voyage in 1968 was from the St. Lawrence seaway port of Montreal to the mighty port of Liverpool, England.

It was November 1968, and a hurricane was dying out in the Atlantic. On shore, no-one could guess what was happening hundreds off miles out to sea. The hurricane had not touched land and people breathed a long sigh of relief. A similar event hit the Atlantic in 2000. Another, in 1991. People use the analogy of the monster or perfect storm to describe events in their work.

My experience was that of monster waves as tall as skyscrapers hitting the vessel at half hour intervals. Easily as tall as the vessel itself, the waves made one feel that one was in a rowing boat instead of a huge ship. Our captain wisely allowed the waves to hit the vessel from the side and not head on, as the USS France was doing to its regret. In any event, he probably had no choice because of the difficult of shifting direction of such a large vessel, even with half an hour intervals. Every half hour for about three days, the ship would tip on its side about 30 or more degrees.

On impact of the wave, everyone sitting in chairs on one side of the lounges which were the width of the ship would slide the ships width to the other side. The vessel would then right itself by tipping in the opposite direction, and people would slide backwards to the opposite side. For each wave there were about five such reversals of direction until the ship regained level balance.

I was fortunate that I did not suffer from sea sickness. Nor did I fear the storm because I trusted the Captain and the ship. I was able to run around and help passengers get to their rooms, or pick them up off the floor.

One passenger at night in an outer edge cabin, was tossed out of his bed by a sideward hitting wave that caused the ship to turn on its side. He was thrown onto a cubbard door at the foot of his bed. As the ship turned on its opposite side, he was tossed back into bed. Immediately, the ship adjusted again its balance by tipping in the opposite direction on its side and the passenger was thrown out of his bed onto the cubboard door once again. The ship corrected itself and the passenger was thrown back into bed, but this time the cubboard door flung open and all its contents flew onto the bed with the passenger. As the ship again righted itself, the passenger was thrown back towards the cubboard door, but this time it was open and the passenger ended up inside the cubboard. The door of the cubboard closed behind him and he was knocked unconscious as it slammed his head. The following morning, he was found locked inside the cubboard sleeping soundly.

Daydreaming Our Way to Better Health

One often dreams while asleep. Dreams very frequently occur just before one wakes up and sunlight is gently caressing the windowsill. We value our dreams because they transport us away from fully integrated awareness.

In dreams, we are only partially integrated. This lack of integration gives dreams a freedom that we do not have in a fully awake state. Some people, however, are lucky enough to be able to create awareness states that are only partially integrated simply by closing their eyes.

I am able to do this. Even better it is possible to lose integrated awareness even when I have my eyes wide upon. We say that people dream walk. Well, some people dream walk through life. They have their eyes wide open. You talk to them and they appear to hear everything you say, but you know that they perpetually live in a dream world in which their brains are not fully integrated. I often ask myself whether this is also the case with myself, and then I am disappointed.

Unfortunately, there are people that are only unintegrated infrequently. Such people are sober. They are rarely intoxicated and they tend to be very serious about everything they say. Sometimes they are so serious and intent that people forget they are serious and when they say or write something that seems strange, the reaction is that of thinking that what was written was written in gest or in a period of insincerity. Nothing could be further from the truth.

People such as myself may write simple, strange, and frequently stupid things with all sincerity. We are actually surprised when we find that people ignore us or think that we are light headed. I have struggled to understand why my brain is like it is and have come to realize that it is because of imperfect memory and logic. In reality, the world frequently throws up information that is contradictory. It tells us two things at once, such as the fact that Australia is below us. We know that this is not the case. Australia is at a similar sea level to what we are. If I ever said that China was beneath me, it is because I was being entirely logical even though my logic to another person does not make any sense whatsoever.

Everyone knows that the English language is a difficult language and much about it is not logical. It follows very definite rules, but these rules are frequently broken and it is difficult to know when they are broken. I understand that this result arose from the 1600 hundreds when the language was being written down and all the nuanaces explored in depth by an increasingly sophisticated, yet divided, community, much of the time drinking gin.

That brings me to another point, which is the sense of humour one has when one is really day dreaming. I sometimes am sitting in a comfortable chair doing nothing in particular but daydreaming. All of a sudden I burst out into laughter. Other people, if they overhear me, think that this is extremely rude. They immediately assume that I am laughing at them, which is rarely true. My mind finds most things amusing and it is only while day dreaming that I lose my inhibitions enough to burst out laughing at the slightest thought. This is why, I feel so good after a good day dream. It's also why I feel so good after a real dream. My dreams are most often really funny because the world is so funny. The world is entirely contradictory in so many ways that it is enough to make one laugh all the time. Good thing I have so much will power and have such a serious nature.

The Wuh Lax Diet: Groping Along in a World of Food Confusion

Right now, I am saying how fortunate I feel to be able to ditch wheat and flour from my list of preferred foods. Gone are the donuts, the cakes, the breads, the sandwiches, the gravies, the junk food of fast food houses. I can't eat in restaurants any more without searching deep into the menu for safe foods that do not contain the products of wheat flour that in foods is almost everywhere.

My challenge of eliminating wheat from my diet arises so that I can clear up my complexion. For years and years, I have suffered from something in wheat and wheat flour products without being aware that I had an allergy weakness or something about these foods was hurting me. The symptoms of my food issue went well beyond complexion, but I am no food scientist and if I had to list them, I would produce a note several chapters long, believe me!

How many other people have the same or similar issues with wheat, I wonder? The effects are not so noticeable that you would immediately spring into action. In fact, I used to work in the world's largest food processing center in North America under one roof. I never had issues with wheat then!

Now, I get a deeps sense of awareness of my own stupidity. Why in hell did I not realize that wheat was not good for me? It took an event to bring about this awareness.

My soul mate, Anne, prepared a huge quantity of home made bread. Ah, was the bread ever delicious! Something to die for! Yes, and seriously, I think I was dieing from it without being aware. Eating wheat products to me now is akin to smoking cigarettes.

You may have an issue with wheat and if you do, you may do it at pain of death. But, no one tells you that unless you have a serious condition called celiac disease!? My friend was the one who enlightened me. She realized that my health was being impacted by something she lovingly prepared.

You may also have a wheat issue without being aware. If you are over your healthy weight, you should certainly research the possibility.

In my own way, I try to come to terms with the DNA factors that may have predisposed me to my wheat issues and come up with the idea that perhaps wheat was not common where my ancestors lived which was in the north and in forests. I have no issues with oats and would have no problem telling people that oats are less likely to cause a food issue. I am no expert, but switching to oats away from wheat seems a sensible idea. In the time of Wim and Wuh, oats would have been the food to eat.

More Exercise But Not Always Alone

Recently, my fitness instructor, directed me to the idea of a personal trainer. The idea was that even though I thought that I was getting enough exercise, she actually knew better. At first, the idea of a personal trainer seemed somewhat over the top, but I have definitely changed my mind. If you don't already have one, get a personal trainer, you may find that do this helps you more than having a family doctor, and it is much less expensive.

Training and being trained means that you are preemptive in your strike against the greatest source of ill health, namely lack of consistent and appropriate exercise. Ever wonder how the Japanese pulled off the their industrial revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Sure they improved on everything they saw, but more importantly, they improved on the way they saw exercise to improve individual health as an asset to the firm, the country and above all to the individual.

The first thing that your presonal trainer will look at is your posture and distribution of fat. Probably, you can't carry all that weight without ruining your posture. Either stengthen your muscles to carry the weight you do, or lose the weight. Believe me it is much easier to lose the weight. Begin by half sizing your meals if you have not already done so. Refer to my blog on this susbject: http://woohs.blogspot.com/2007/11/half-size-mine-please-i-am-trying-to.html

Your trainer will help you work up your muscles to the point where you move more easily and you have greater flexibility. Hopefully, you will be losing weight as you exercise. Don't try to everything at once. A gradual approach gives you time to adjust to the process of creating a healthier and stronger new you.