Patriotism, Nationalism, and Americanism
Here's a great post from Hot Air regarding the Conservative vs. Liberal view of things. Good thoughts in anticipation of the 4th of July holiday.
Fun Finds from Bits and Pieces
Ponderables:
1. The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.
2. Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
3. If you don’t have a sense of humor, you probably don’t have any sense at all.
4. Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep water.
6. How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?
7. Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.
8. Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?
9. Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job.
10. No one has more driving ambition than the boy who wants to buy a car.
11. There are no new sins; the old ones just get more publicity.
12. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 AM. It could be a right number.
13. No one ever says “It’s only a game” when his team is winning.
14. I’ve reached the age where the happy hour is a nap.
15. Be careful reading the fine print. There’s no way you’re going to like it.
16. The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
17. Do you realize that in about 40 years, we’ll have thousands of OLD LADIES running around with tattoos? (And RAP music will be the Golden Oldies!)
18. Money can’t buy happiness — but somehow it’s more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than in a Yugo.
19. After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
1. The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.
2. Money will buy a fine dog, but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
3. If you don’t have a sense of humor, you probably don’t have any sense at all.
4. Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep water.
6. How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?
7. Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.
8. Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?
9. Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job.
10. No one has more driving ambition than the boy who wants to buy a car.
11. There are no new sins; the old ones just get more publicity.
12. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 AM. It could be a right number.
13. No one ever says “It’s only a game” when his team is winning.
14. I’ve reached the age where the happy hour is a nap.
15. Be careful reading the fine print. There’s no way you’re going to like it.
16. The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
17. Do you realize that in about 40 years, we’ll have thousands of OLD LADIES running around with tattoos? (And RAP music will be the Golden Oldies!)
18. Money can’t buy happiness — but somehow it’s more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than in a Yugo.
19. After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
This has been around for a while, but it’s interesting. The “rules” say the first and last letters should be correct, but that’s not necessarily so with three letter words. You can still read them OK too.
A "Black History" of Politics
Here is a great article by Larry Elder regarding the difference between the Republican and Democrat parties on the issue of race written to a "former supporter" of his in response to a letter he received as a Black Republican. From the article:
"You also might want to familiarize yourself with the history of the Democratic and Republican parties, and see which party has stood up longer for the rights of people of color. Do you know that Democrats opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution -- abolishing slavery, granting citizenship rights to newly freed slaves, and guaranteeing the right to vote (at least on paper) to blacks, respectively? Do you know that most of the politicians who stood for segregation were Southern Democrats? Do you know that the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Democrats, one of whose goals was to stop the spread of the Republican Party? Do you know that, as a percentage of the party, more Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?"
If Only Mugabe Were White...
Sad! It's so hard to understand this type of political inaction in a region that is so intricately connected. At some level I am simply trying NOT to understand it.
"Africa's rulers often complain, with justice, that the West's perceptions of the continent are disproportionately shaped by buffoons and tyrants rather than by the increasing number of democratically elected presidents presiding over 6 percent growth rates. But as long as African presidents mollycoddle Mugabe, they are branding Africa with his image."
June 26 & 27 food
I'm eating the same thing every day in the hotel so not much to post. Today I stocked up on supplies at the Wedge Co-op, an excellent grocery store.
Breakfast: 16 oz box of strawberries, 6 oz box of blueberries, handful of walnuts
Lunch: salad mix, half an avocado, mushrooms, red pepper. dessert: cherries. mmmm
Snacks: banana, apple, orange, carrot, watermelon
Dinner: salad mix, spoonful each of raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds, mushrooms, red pepper. dessert: grapes. sometimes I just add the grapes to the salad.
The golf tournament is quite fun too.
Breakfast: 16 oz box of strawberries, 6 oz box of blueberries, handful of walnuts
Lunch: salad mix, half an avocado, mushrooms, red pepper. dessert: cherries. mmmm
Snacks: banana, apple, orange, carrot, watermelon
Dinner: salad mix, spoonful each of raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds, mushrooms, red pepper. dessert: grapes. sometimes I just add the grapes to the salad.
The golf tournament is quite fun too.
Lottery Tickets to See Your Dr!
Here's an article that describes the complete failure of the Canadian health care system. The shocking thing is that this conclusion is made by "the founder" of the system:
"The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.
Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."
"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."
Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.
In America, these ideas may not sound shocking. But in Canada, where the private sector has been shunned for decades, these are extraordinary views, especially coming from Castonguay. It's as if John Maynard Keynes, resting on his British death bed in 1946, had declared that his faith in government interventionism was misplaced.
What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.
Years ago, Canadians touted their health care system as the best in the world; today, Canadian health care stands in ruinous shape."
Womanized Men
This seems to be a very popular recurrent theme lately. I came across another article explaining how men are so interested in their own fashion and style that they act more like women. This comment is usually made by a woman and in a condemning tone.
"Looking at the appearance of contemporary young men, one may notice how much their notions of masculinity have changed, how this masculinity is sometimes being replaced by femininity." But, she added to the 400 women and the 10 or so men at the conference: "One cannot help but notice that the world of men has become increasingly effeminate... I don't know if we can see this as our gender's victory."
A Child-Centered World
Here is a brilliant article by Joseph Epstein called "The Kindergarchy" from The Weekly Standard from 06/09/08. He basically takes on the idea of how our society has moved from "children are to be seen and not heard" to the child-centric world most adults have chosen, or are required, to live in. From the article:
"...Children have gone from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centered on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments, their right relationship with parents and grandparents. For the past 30 years at least, we have been lavishing vast expense and anxiety on our children in ways that are unprecedented in American and in perhaps any other national life. Such has been the weight of all this concern about children that it has exercised a subtle but pervasive tyranny of its own. This is what I call Kindergarchy: dreary, boring, sadly misguided Kindergarchy.
...
I don't recall many stretches of boredom in my boyhood. Life was lived among friends on the block and, later, during games on the playground. Winter afternoons after school were filled up by "Jack Armstrong," "Captain Midnight," and other radio programs for kids. Boredom, really, wasn't an option. I recall only once telling my mother that I was bored. "Oh," she said, a furtive smile on her lips, "why don't you bang your head against the wall. That'll take your mind off your boredom." I never mentioned boredom again.
...
I don't for a moment mean to suggest that such an upbringing produced a superior generation of adults. What it produced was another group of people who later spent their lives going about the world's business, with no strong grudges against their parents or anger at such abstract enemies as The System. All I would claim is that to be free from so much parental supervision seemed a nice way to grow up, and it surely resulted in a lot less wear and tear on everyone all round.
...
Suddenly parents wanted their children to think of them as, if not exactly contemporaries, then as friends, pals, fun people. Parents of my own parents' generation may have been more or less kind, generous, humorous, warm, but, however attractive, they never thought of themselves as their children's friends. When your son becomes a man (or your daughter a woman), make him (or her) your brother (or sister), an old Arab proverb has it. But it's probably a serious mistake to make a kid of 9 or 14 your brother or sister. Childrearing became a highly self-conscious activity, in all of its facets.
...On visits to the homes of friends with small children, one finds their toys strewn everywhere, their drawings on the refrigerator, television sets turned to their shows. Parents in this context seem less than secondary, little more than indentured servants. Under the Kindergarchy, all arrangements are centered on children: their schooling, their lessons, their predilections, their care and feeding and general high maintenance--children are the name of the game.
No other generations of kids have been so curried and cultivated, so pampered and primed, though primed for what exactly is a bit unclear. Children are given a voice in lots of decisions formerly not up for their consideration.
...
How did earlier generations of parents seem able to manage raising children while putting in so much less time, avoiding so much Sturm und Drang? People raising children today will tell you that the world is a more frightening place now than it was 50 years ago. Much more crime out there, drugs are easily obtained, sex offenders are everywhere, lots of children turn up missing, as the back of your milk cartons will inform you. The spirit of therapy having triumphed, we now see more clearly than heretofore how fragile the young human personality is, how easily it can be smashed by mistreatment or mismanagement or want of affection. Add to all this that the options for children are much greater today; a child can go in any number of ways in education and in life, and all these need to be thoroughly investigated.
...
So often in my literature classes students told me what they "felt" about a novel, or a particular character in a novel. I tried, ever so gently, to tell them that no one cared what they felt; the trick was to discover not one's feelings but what the author had put into the book, its moral weight and its resultant power. In essay courses, many of these same students turned in papers upon which I wished to--but did not--write: "D-, Too much love in the home." I knew where they came by their sense of their own deep significance and that this sense was utterly false to any conceivable reality. Despite what their parents had been telling them from the very outset of their lives, they were not significant. Significance has to be earned, and it is earned only through achievement. Besides, one of the first things that people who really are significant seem to know is that, in the grander scheme, they are themselves really quite insignificant.
...
The consequences of so many years of endlessly attentive childrearing in young people can also be witnessed in many among them who act as if certain that they are deserving of the interest of the rest of us; they come off as very knowing. Lots of their conversation turns out to be chiefly about themselves, and much of it feels as if it is formulated to impress some dean of admissions with how very extraordinary they are. Despite all the effort that has been put into shaping these kids, things, somehow, don't seem quite to have worked out. Who would have thought that so much love in the home would result in such far from lovable children? But then, come to think of it, apart from their parents, who would have thought otherwise?"
The 11th Commandment
Listening to Dennis Prager tonight, he suggested discussing this question with friends: If you could add an 11th Commandment to God's 10, what would it be and why? He informed his audience that he has asked his audiences this question over the years and the most common answer was something along the form of: "Thou shall respect/love your children." Needless to say, if you are a frequent listener, he found this a silly answer.
So I pose this "unquestion" to you. This is actually a very difficult question when considering the other 10, as if a Perfect God would leave anything uncovered in His own list. Additionally, when I think of all the other commands throughout the Bible -- like Love your neighbor as your self, Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, If someone asks for your coat give him your shirt as well, etc. -- I wonder if there are any of these that I would raise to the level of "the 10".
Topics that come to mind immediately are suffering, freedom, discipline, solitude, etc. To put something in a command form, whether positive (you shall do...) or negative (you shall not do...) is very hard. But if I had to give an answer without too much deliberation, I would propose:
"You shall be grateful."
So I pose this "unquestion" to you. This is actually a very difficult question when considering the other 10, as if a Perfect God would leave anything uncovered in His own list. Additionally, when I think of all the other commands throughout the Bible -- like Love your neighbor as your self, Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, If someone asks for your coat give him your shirt as well, etc. -- I wonder if there are any of these that I would raise to the level of "the 10".
Topics that come to mind immediately are suffering, freedom, discipline, solitude, etc. To put something in a command form, whether positive (you shall do...) or negative (you shall not do...) is very hard. But if I had to give an answer without too much deliberation, I would propose:
"You shall be grateful."
June 25 food
Now for the fun experiment of eating healthy in a hotel. I brought this food in an electric cooler.
Breakfast: 4 oz strawberries, 3 oz blueberries, 3 oz raspberries, baby spring mix and baby herb mix from bags, handful of walnuts. Yummy! To make life easy, I did not cut this stuff up and put it in a bowl. I rinsed the berries in a bowl, dumped the water, and then just ate them with my fingers. then I rinsed the salad mixes in a bowl, dumped the water, and ate them with my fingers. good stuff. The dill in one of the mixes was a nice touch. Then ate my walnuts.
Snack: carrot, apple.
Lunch: the rest of the berries (same amount as before). more salad mix. some mushrooms. part of a red pepper. half an avocado. Next time I'll probably not bother with avocado. You have to cut it--then I just scooped it out with a spoon and ate it, but then I had to wash a knife and spoon (no soap required but I'm not in the mood for utensils in a hotel room). I felt the same way about the red pepper until I ate it. Boy was it good. I sliced a chunk of the red pepper and ate it and decided using a knife for that was acceptable. I just ate these things one at a time until I was full. I tried to eat a lot because then I headed off to the golf tournament for several hours.
Dinner: more of the same. salad mix, mushrooms, carrots, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, orange for dessert. I did the same thing, ate them one at a time--oh, I did add the seed to the salad mix. This is fun because you really taste each ingredient. It's not something I'd do at home where I have a kitchen to work in, but it works great in a hotel.
Before leaving home I punched these foods into "fitday.com" to see if it I was going to get enough (or too much) calories or protein. Well, I actually don't need that much protein since I won't be working out like I usually do, but it was very illuminating. Mushrooms have a ton of protein per calorie! As do salad greens. The rest have about 10% protein which is plenty. So I realized I don't need the nuts and seeds for protein, I just need a minimum amount (of the nuts and seeds) for the healthy fats (omega-3s etc) and because they aid in absorption of nutrients, according to Dr. Fuhrman. And I realized I can eat whatever I want of the rest and won't gain weight. That's what Fuhrman as been saying all along and I am slowly catching on.
Breakfast: 4 oz strawberries, 3 oz blueberries, 3 oz raspberries, baby spring mix and baby herb mix from bags, handful of walnuts. Yummy! To make life easy, I did not cut this stuff up and put it in a bowl. I rinsed the berries in a bowl, dumped the water, and then just ate them with my fingers. then I rinsed the salad mixes in a bowl, dumped the water, and ate them with my fingers. good stuff. The dill in one of the mixes was a nice touch. Then ate my walnuts.
Snack: carrot, apple.
Lunch: the rest of the berries (same amount as before). more salad mix. some mushrooms. part of a red pepper. half an avocado. Next time I'll probably not bother with avocado. You have to cut it--then I just scooped it out with a spoon and ate it, but then I had to wash a knife and spoon (no soap required but I'm not in the mood for utensils in a hotel room). I felt the same way about the red pepper until I ate it. Boy was it good. I sliced a chunk of the red pepper and ate it and decided using a knife for that was acceptable. I just ate these things one at a time until I was full. I tried to eat a lot because then I headed off to the golf tournament for several hours.
Dinner: more of the same. salad mix, mushrooms, carrots, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, orange for dessert. I did the same thing, ate them one at a time--oh, I did add the seed to the salad mix. This is fun because you really taste each ingredient. It's not something I'd do at home where I have a kitchen to work in, but it works great in a hotel.
Before leaving home I punched these foods into "fitday.com" to see if it I was going to get enough (or too much) calories or protein. Well, I actually don't need that much protein since I won't be working out like I usually do, but it was very illuminating. Mushrooms have a ton of protein per calorie! As do salad greens. The rest have about 10% protein which is plenty. So I realized I don't need the nuts and seeds for protein, I just need a minimum amount (of the nuts and seeds) for the healthy fats (omega-3s etc) and because they aid in absorption of nutrients, according to Dr. Fuhrman. And I realized I can eat whatever I want of the rest and won't gain weight. That's what Fuhrman as been saying all along and I am slowly catching on.
June 24 rant
I'm in a hotel for several nights with 2 friends. Last night After I ate my dinner smoothie, I accompanied my friends to Denny's (next door) for dinner. That stuff doesn't even look like food to me anymore. Is it? One friend got nachos and the other got a BLT and fries. It's all so processed. Even the "fresh" veggies like the pico de gallo sauce on the nachos are probably made by one of those food-delivery mega-corporations like Cisco; it probably had preservatives on it and they were probably the cheapest, low-quality veggies since profit is the bottom line here. Even the fries, which used to tempt me, didn't look appealing to me, because I wondered how the oil was made, how old it was, how long ago were those potatoes sliced and frozen and plus they were loaded with salt. The food came very quickly so the bacon was probably already cooked up too (at least that was probably done in the kitchen). I don't mean to single out Denny's. I mean to condemn them all. Substitute 98% of restaurants and I would feel the same. I sound like a real weirdo but the more I eat real food, the more I think this other stuff is not food. okay, it's food but it's not healthy. One thing I'm starting to realize, which Dr. Fuhrman says a lot, but I was slow catching on, is that not only does this SAD (Standard American Diet) food have harmful things in it like too much fat and animal protein, but perhaps even more importantly is what it lacks in micronutrients, like you get in leafy green vegetables. These micronutrients do so many things like fight cancer, keep your skin and nails and hair healthy, fight inflammation, and much more. My house-mate's health has improved since I've been feeding her 2 good meals a day. So even though I wish I could convince her to quit the junk she eats the rest of the time, I can see that the healthy food has an effect.
June 24 food
Today we headed off to Minneapolis to watch a golf tournament (US Women's Open). I loaded up with supplies at the grocery store and put them in an electric cooler. These coolers are nice,because they don't require ice--you plug them into your car outlet. And there is an attachment for plugging into a wall when you get to your hotel. But I didn't have to break into the supplies yet today as breakfast and lunch were at home and I brought a smoothie for dinner (happened to have one in the freezer). Today's meals:
Breakfast: blueberry smoothie
Lunch: steamed asparagus and broccoli and carrots. My meal was mostly asparagus and broccoli stems, and I gave housemate the broccoli trees and carrots (I don't mind the stems). I added lemon and fresh herbs from the garden (chives, dill, basil, cilantro, parlsey, a little of each but a lot of chives) and a bit of date sugar. It was delicious.
Snacks: apple, banana, orange, grapes
Dinner: green smoothie
Breakfast: blueberry smoothie
Lunch: steamed asparagus and broccoli and carrots. My meal was mostly asparagus and broccoli stems, and I gave housemate the broccoli trees and carrots (I don't mind the stems). I added lemon and fresh herbs from the garden (chives, dill, basil, cilantro, parlsey, a little of each but a lot of chives) and a bit of date sugar. It was delicious.
Snacks: apple, banana, orange, grapes
Dinner: green smoothie
Edamame and pesto
Ingredients:
Frozen bag of edamame (not shelled)
Frozen pesto made from the garden last summer (several spoonfuls)
Take the edamame and pesto out of the freezer. Boil water, add the edamame, bring to boil and boil for 4 minutes. Defrost the pesto in the microwave, add it to the edamame. Then you make a big mess eating it. It's very fun. The edamame is in its shell so you bite it and squish out the beans. And your fingers get pesto all over them. It's as messy as a crawfish/shrimp boil or crab/lobster dinner, only no one is hurt by it. This only takes 10 minutes to prepare, and is delicious.
Frozen bag of edamame (not shelled)
Frozen pesto made from the garden last summer (several spoonfuls)
Take the edamame and pesto out of the freezer. Boil water, add the edamame, bring to boil and boil for 4 minutes. Defrost the pesto in the microwave, add it to the edamame. Then you make a big mess eating it. It's very fun. The edamame is in its shell so you bite it and squish out the beans. And your fingers get pesto all over them. It's as messy as a crawfish/shrimp boil or crab/lobster dinner, only no one is hurt by it. This only takes 10 minutes to prepare, and is delicious.
Oil-free Pesto
I modified this from Isa Chandra Moskowitz' Vegan With a Vengeance cookbook. The traditional pesto recipes use basil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, olive oil and lemon. The vegan recipes substitute nutritional yeast for the parmesan cheese. I've tried this and don't like the combination of pine nuts and nutritional yeast. Isa substitutes walnuts for the pine nuts and I think this works better. She also puts in a lot of olive oil and salt which I leave out. and I put in less nutritional yeast.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup walnuts
3 cups packed basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
1-2 Tbsp water
1-2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp lemon juice
Combine the walnuts, basil and garlic in a food processor. Add in the water and lemon. Add in the nutritional yeast. Blend until it's grainy, but not a puree.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup walnuts
3 cups packed basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
1-2 Tbsp water
1-2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp lemon juice
Combine the walnuts, basil and garlic in a food processor. Add in the water and lemon. Add in the nutritional yeast. Blend until it's grainy, but not a puree.
Baked plantain
I saw a plantain in the store and it looked intriguing. It's kind of like a banana. The description said that it's ripe when it turns black, and when it's not ripe, you'll need to cook it. Well, I'm leaving town and the plantain was almost black but not quite. So I decided to bake it. Here's the "recipe":
Ingredients:
1 plantain, peeled, cut into coins (like you usually do a banana)
lemon or orange juice (fresh squeezed)
water
a bunch of date sugar on a plate
Preheat oven to 350 F. I squeezed the lemon into a bowl of water and added the plantains. I thought the lemon might add a little flavor and perhaps "tendorize" the plantain. Next, place each plantain piece into the date sugar to coat it. Put it on a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Turn over. Bake for another 5-10 or whenever it starts to smell good. This is like dessert. Yum.
Ingredients:
1 plantain, peeled, cut into coins (like you usually do a banana)
lemon or orange juice (fresh squeezed)
water
a bunch of date sugar on a plate
Preheat oven to 350 F. I squeezed the lemon into a bowl of water and added the plantains. I thought the lemon might add a little flavor and perhaps "tendorize" the plantain. Next, place each plantain piece into the date sugar to coat it. Put it on a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Turn over. Bake for another 5-10 or whenever it starts to smell good. This is like dessert. Yum.
June 23 food
Not much time to write, but I made a fun dish so can't resist. Today I ate whatever was left in the fridge and fruit bowl, because I'm going out of town tomorrow. It was all great.
Breakfast: Raspberry smoothie
Lunch: leftover beans, salad, baked plantain (yummy). The salad consisted of iceberg lettuce + lettuce greens, green pepper, mango topped with cilantro and parsley from the garden and ground up sunflower and pumpkin seeds (raw). The seeds dried it up a bit so next time I'd probably combine them with a fresh squeezed orange before topping. It was good. For housemate, I made steamed new potatoes and carrots, topped with lemon, chives, dill, and parsley (from the garden), and just a touch of date sugar
Snack: mushrooms, carrots
Dinner: edamame with pesto. One of my favorites and it only takes 10 minutes!
Breakfast: Raspberry smoothie
Lunch: leftover beans, salad, baked plantain (yummy). The salad consisted of iceberg lettuce + lettuce greens, green pepper, mango topped with cilantro and parsley from the garden and ground up sunflower and pumpkin seeds (raw). The seeds dried it up a bit so next time I'd probably combine them with a fresh squeezed orange before topping. It was good. For housemate, I made steamed new potatoes and carrots, topped with lemon, chives, dill, and parsley (from the garden), and just a touch of date sugar
Snack: mushrooms, carrots
Dinner: edamame with pesto. One of my favorites and it only takes 10 minutes!
National Association of Scholars' letter
Here is the text of an email letter I received recently. I thought you may be interested in reading and replying.
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is looking for some help.
We are the group of scholars who got together in the 1980s to fight political correctness on America’s college campuses. Back then, we imagined that the grown-ups on campus only needed to be reminded of their responsibilities to put things right. After all, how could serious scholars permit higher education to descend into speech codes, racial quotas, and political indoctrination? Or preside over the trashing of the core curriculum, Western civilization, and the American founding?
Boy, were we naïve!
We fought and fought hard. But while thousands of professors joined us, and we surely slowed the tide, American higher education is more politicized and less intellectually cogent today than when we started. Then we faced Howard Zinn (A People’s History of the United States) and Jesse “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western civ has got to go” Jackson. Today we have Ward Churchill, Sami Al-Arian, the Duke 88, as well as entirely “postmodernized” academic programs and university requirements, devoted to ensuring that students, who may know little else, know loads about diversity, feminism, global warming, the failures of capitalism, and the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson.
An ideological monoculture reigns supreme. Outside the hard sciences, only a handful of institutions exist in which the full spectrum of ideas gets robustly debated. Notions elsewhere regarded as good common sense are routinely dismissed by academic putdowns implying ignorance and malice. Where else but on an American college campus would you find male-female attraction stigmatized as “heteronormativity?” A recent study showed that students at some elite universities, including Yale, know less about American history upon graduation than they did when they finished high school. In some ways, an American college education has become an act of cultural erasure, with “identity” and political commitment replacing genuine knowledge.
Undaunted, we continue to fight, but, now more than ever, your help is needed. We ask you to take our survey. We’ll make good use of your answers in any case, but we do have an ulterior motive. We also welcome your questions—you can reach us at nasonweb@nas.org.
Yours Sincerely,
Stephen H. Balch
President, National Association of Scholars
June 22 food
At some point I'll stop blogging each day's food. But I want to show examples of how you can eat healthy in a variety of situations, for example, in social settings, or when the refrigerator is getting empty. Today is a bit of a mixture of those. Tomorrow I'll be eating whatever is left in the refrigerator as we empty it out before a trip.
Breakfast: banana strawberry smoothie
Lunch: Spinach smoothie and a few fresh vegetables from the lunch line: carrot, apple slices, tomatoes. I was at a luncheon after church. The smoothie is delicious and filling so I don't care how little of the other food I get. It's also easier to bring a smoothie to the table than my own prepared lunch, since it just looks like a drink. I had some leftover beans when I got home. I'm trying to finish them off even though I am ready for a break from beans.
Dessert: walnut stuff in a date, microwaved for 10 seconds.
Snack: grapes, carrot
Dinner: Big salad made from leftovers from yesterday: iceberg lettuce (contrary to popular opinion, this is reasonably nutritious), salad greens, mushrooms, tomato, mango, 1/2 avocado. Added some cilantro and chives from the garden. This was so tasty it didn't need any dressing. I find that if I add fruit or berries to a salad I don't really want dressing. Or other times I am in the mood for my favorite orange-cashew dressing so I don't add fruit to the salad.
Breakfast: banana strawberry smoothie
Lunch: Spinach smoothie and a few fresh vegetables from the lunch line: carrot, apple slices, tomatoes. I was at a luncheon after church. The smoothie is delicious and filling so I don't care how little of the other food I get. It's also easier to bring a smoothie to the table than my own prepared lunch, since it just looks like a drink. I had some leftover beans when I got home. I'm trying to finish them off even though I am ready for a break from beans.
Dessert: walnut stuff in a date, microwaved for 10 seconds.
Snack: grapes, carrot
Dinner: Big salad made from leftovers from yesterday: iceberg lettuce (contrary to popular opinion, this is reasonably nutritious), salad greens, mushrooms, tomato, mango, 1/2 avocado. Added some cilantro and chives from the garden. This was so tasty it didn't need any dressing. I find that if I add fruit or berries to a salad I don't really want dressing. Or other times I am in the mood for my favorite orange-cashew dressing so I don't add fruit to the salad.
A New Paradigm
When I became a vegan, I learned how to cook all over again, and it was fun. Now I feel like I'm rethinking food again. I've always relied on recipes but now I feel they aren't so necessary. Just mix vegetables and fruit and make wonderful concoctions. I'm even rethinking beans, which I considered a staple--the bloating and gas is getting old, plus it pushes out of the diet some delicious vegetables and fruit. It's really fun to mix whatever vegetables and fruit is in your fridge, and shop for whatever looks interesting instead of what is on your list from a recipe plan. It's all easier, fast to prepare, and tastes great. Vegetables and fruits---these are the most delicious foods! Why are we taught to think of these last? I think it's because the food companies want you to spend your money on their products. Even vegans are taught this as we replace our meat with tofu and tempeh and seitan and grains, and aim to make vegan baked goods as decadent as the animal products kind, and exclaim that we do not in fact eat like rabbits. Vegetables and fuits should be the centerpiece, not the afterthought, and we should eat like rabbits (actually I'm not sure what rabbits eat but greens and carrots come to mind). Next week I'll be eating from a cooler in my hotel room. So I'll be eating raw: bagged salad mixes, berries, nuts and fruits. Should be delicious compared to my compatriots who will be eating hotdogs and hamburgers at the food stands (we going to a golf tournament). More on that in a few days.
Curried Mustard Greens
Edited July 1. much better!
This may seem weird but I avoid buying things in a can or bottle or box. Some reasons include laziness (another ingredient to add to the shopping list and the cupboard); not wanting to support mega-corporations; cans and bottles (e.g., of juice or soy milk) and jars add too much weight and volume to my bike bags; and I don't like reading labels to make sure it's vegan and healthy. So I didn't have any coconut milk which is a common ingredient for a curry sauce, so I made a cashew sauce instead. After making this recipe the first time, I thought it needed some sweetening. Coincidentally, Elijah posted his own curry sauce invention on the Fuhrman forums, and he used a banana. That sounded like a good idea, so I tried it and I think it works well. I also added garlic and mushrooms second time through and that was a nice addition. Third time through I added ginger and shaved coconut (dried) and red pepper flakes. I thought this was as good as any restaurant curry I've ever had. This would probably work with a lot of different greens: swiss chard, bok choy, kale, even collard greens though you'd need to cook the collard greens longer
Ingredients
1 onion, thinly sliced
1-4 cloves garlic (depends on how much you like garlic)
Large bunch or bunches of mustard greens, yum
sliced mushrooms (however much you like, okay if you insist on an amount, 2/3 cup)
1.5 oz raw cashews (1/4 cup)
1 banana
1 date, remove pit
some grapes, say 1 cup, slice each in half.
This may seem weird but I avoid buying things in a can or bottle or box. Some reasons include laziness (another ingredient to add to the shopping list and the cupboard); not wanting to support mega-corporations; cans and bottles (e.g., of juice or soy milk) and jars add too much weight and volume to my bike bags; and I don't like reading labels to make sure it's vegan and healthy. So I didn't have any coconut milk which is a common ingredient for a curry sauce, so I made a cashew sauce instead. After making this recipe the first time, I thought it needed some sweetening. Coincidentally, Elijah posted his own curry sauce invention on the Fuhrman forums, and he used a banana. That sounded like a good idea, so I tried it and I think it works well. I also added garlic and mushrooms second time through and that was a nice addition. Third time through I added ginger and shaved coconut (dried) and red pepper flakes. I thought this was as good as any restaurant curry I've ever had. This would probably work with a lot of different greens: swiss chard, bok choy, kale, even collard greens though you'd need to cook the collard greens longer
Ingredients
1 onion, thinly sliced
1-4 cloves garlic (depends on how much you like garlic)
Large bunch or bunches of mustard greens, yum
sliced mushrooms (however much you like, okay if you insist on an amount, 2/3 cup)
1.5 oz raw cashews (1/4 cup)
1 banana
1 date, remove pit
some grapes, say 1 cup, slice each in half.
1 Tbsp minced or diced ginger
2 Tbsp shaved coconut (optional)
ground black pepper or diced hot pepper or red pepper flakes (i.e., your preference for spiciness)
I sliced the onion thinly and then cut them in quarters. Do it however you want, but you don't need it finely diced. Start cooking the onion in a large fry pan with plenty of water. Wash the mustard greens, rip the stems out, and cut or tear into medium size pieces (few inches on a side). chop the garlic and add. Dice the ginger and add. Chop the mushrooms and add. Add the curry powder and pepper and shaved coconut. Put a lid on the pan, make sure there is enough water (not too much, but enough so it doesn't boil away and burn), and let it cook. Blend the cashews, date, banana in some water (half cup or so) in a powerful blender until smooth. Cut up the grapes. Check the greens. when you think there's about 5 minutes left, add the grapes and the cashew-banana sauce. I didn't wait, because I was hungry. I'd say the greens cooked about 15 minutes when I added the grapes and cashew-banana sauce. You can cook them 20-30 minutes if you want them more tender. Add water as needed to make the sauce however thick you want.
The only substantial fat in this is the cashews so if you keep it within your daily allotment, you can eat this whole thing in one sitting, or share with a friend. You can add this to rice, but it tastes good on its own. I'm eating all the vegetables and fruit I can while they are still affordable. I'll wait for the economic crisis to add the filler grains.
I bet mango would be a good substitute for grapes. I just can't get my mangos to ripen well in Wisconsin. I think they are shipped really unripe.
ground black pepper or diced hot pepper or red pepper flakes (i.e., your preference for spiciness)
I sliced the onion thinly and then cut them in quarters. Do it however you want, but you don't need it finely diced. Start cooking the onion in a large fry pan with plenty of water. Wash the mustard greens, rip the stems out, and cut or tear into medium size pieces (few inches on a side). chop the garlic and add. Dice the ginger and add. Chop the mushrooms and add. Add the curry powder and pepper and shaved coconut. Put a lid on the pan, make sure there is enough water (not too much, but enough so it doesn't boil away and burn), and let it cook. Blend the cashews, date, banana in some water (half cup or so) in a powerful blender until smooth. Cut up the grapes. Check the greens. when you think there's about 5 minutes left, add the grapes and the cashew-banana sauce. I didn't wait, because I was hungry. I'd say the greens cooked about 15 minutes when I added the grapes and cashew-banana sauce. You can cook them 20-30 minutes if you want them more tender. Add water as needed to make the sauce however thick you want.
The only substantial fat in this is the cashews so if you keep it within your daily allotment, you can eat this whole thing in one sitting, or share with a friend. You can add this to rice, but it tastes good on its own. I'm eating all the vegetables and fruit I can while they are still affordable. I'll wait for the economic crisis to add the filler grains.
I bet mango would be a good substitute for grapes. I just can't get my mangos to ripen well in Wisconsin. I think they are shipped really unripe.
June 21 food
Today we had family visit. House-mate prepared them a meal of meatloaf, baked potatoes, salad, peas and corn. (yuck, I cleaned up carefully after the meatloaf preparation). Housemate's mother brought cake. And they had ice cream too. And milk and cheese on their salad and butter on their rolls. I don't feel critical or superior towards them because they think they are eating very healthy food, and that their declining health is a natural part of aging. This is what I thought 3 years ago, because this is what we are all taught, and I only stumbled on my discovery by accident. I am angry at the food and medical and pharmacuetical industries who are happy to profit off of people's declining health instead of letting them cure themselves through a healthy and delicious diet. I am a coward because I don't try to convince people I love that they can become healthy from changing their diets. I just quietly eat my food. I need to work on this. Here's what I ate today:
Breakfast: smoothie
Lunch: yesterday's beans on (small) baked sweet potato, steamed asparagus with lemon and ground sunflower seeds, peas and corn, salad.
Snack: grapes, apple, small peach
Dinner: Curried mustard greens. The family had pizza delivered. I enjoyed my meal as much as I recall enjoying pizza.
Dessert: Strawberries and mango (small bowl). The mango I've been eating lately is a smallish yellow one from Mexico, not the more common large green-red one from South America. The larger ones taste better when properly ripened, but in Wisconsin we get them really unripe and they don't ripen well in my kitchen--they ripen at as they wrinkle instead of ripening first. So the Mexican ones work better for me right now.
After the guests left, I made some green smoothies, because I might need one for a luncheon event after church tomorrow. I'm finding that bringing your own food and not apologizing about it seems to work just fine.
Breakfast: smoothie
Lunch: yesterday's beans on (small) baked sweet potato, steamed asparagus with lemon and ground sunflower seeds, peas and corn, salad.
Snack: grapes, apple, small peach
Dinner: Curried mustard greens. The family had pizza delivered. I enjoyed my meal as much as I recall enjoying pizza.
Dessert: Strawberries and mango (small bowl). The mango I've been eating lately is a smallish yellow one from Mexico, not the more common large green-red one from South America. The larger ones taste better when properly ripened, but in Wisconsin we get them really unripe and they don't ripen well in my kitchen--they ripen at as they wrinkle instead of ripening first. So the Mexican ones work better for me right now.
After the guests left, I made some green smoothies, because I might need one for a luncheon event after church tomorrow. I'm finding that bringing your own food and not apologizing about it seems to work just fine.
12 Year-Old Sues Father Over Grounding
I think I'm just going to start a label called "Rabbit Hole" - a reference to Alice in Wonderland, whereby we take a look into another world where everything seems upside down or in someway very foreign to our own. Unfortunately, this phrase is used to indicate a look into the future and seeing our own world.
Well, the latest glimpse down the rabbit hole is a Canadian court case where a 12 year old girl sued her father for grounding her because she used chat sites he had forbidden and posted "inappropriate" pictures of herself on the web. According to the article:
Well, the latest glimpse down the rabbit hole is a Canadian court case where a 12 year old girl sued her father for grounding her because she used chat sites he had forbidden and posted "inappropriate" pictures of herself on the web. According to the article:
"The girl, whose parents are divorced, then left her dad’s house and moved in with her mother, even though the father has 100% custody. But because she still needed her father to sign the consent form for the field trip, she and her mother convinced a court-appointed lawyer to take the father to court."The shocking thing is that the mother participated in this (this is apparently why she does NOT have custody), and that a judge actually heard the case and agreed with the child!
How my health has improved
I stumbled onto healthy eating when I became a vegan in July 2005, at age 45. I didn't have any serious health problems, yet, but they were starting. My weight had increased a couple pounds every year since my mid-30s, so by this time I was 158 lbs. I am 5' 9" tall so I wasn't technically overweight but I've never had much muscle on my frame so this extra weight was all fat. And it was a bit uncomfortable, especially while flying on airplanes for some reason, maybe because we're packed in so tight. I had daily indigestion and thought I had acid reflux disease (GERD?). I had a heart murmur, heartbeat irregularities, and I figured a heart attack was in my future, just like my mother and grandmother before me. My mother, who had always watched her weight, had a heart attack a day after she ran 5 miles. I had hip pain, backaches and shoulder aches. Right around the time I became vegetarian (May 2005), I had just bought a pair of size 16 jeans and recall accepting to myself that this is my new size and this is a natural part of aging.
When I went vegan, I ate pretty healthy food, in part out of ignorance (I didn't know about vegan ice cream!): grains, vegetables, beans, and fruit, and I continued to cook with oil. After about 9 months I started cutting out the oil, after discovering the McDougall, Fuhrman, and PCRM websites. I discovered the fatfreevegan website, which had great oil-free recipes. Then when I became a member of the Fuhrman website, I found even more delicious-tasting recipes including nut-based dressings and fruit-and-nut desserts, and soups with carrot juice as a base (these are in his Eat for Health book too). I adopted Dr. Fuhrman's diet which he calls "nutritarian." I didn't adopt it all at once, in part because I'm a skeptic, and because it seemed so radical. But over time, as I felt better and better with each step, I became convinced that all his advice was correct! Caffeine, alcohol, salt, and those last occasional splurges on a vegan cupcake or cookie, were the last things I "gave up", each in steps, but by the time I was ready to "give them up", it was more a desire not to have them because I didn't enjoy how I felt after eating them. And finally, I can even say that about the occasional vegan cupcake/cookie which was the last thing I let go of. I never realized how addictive sugar and refined grains are until I turned them into forbidden foods. Anyway, here is how my health has improved since adopting a healthy diet:
1) Indigestion went away immediately when I quit dairy. I discovered this by accident when I was traveling to Mexico and then Sicily in May 2005, and it was warm and I didn't feel like drinking milk (normally I drank about 2 glasses per day). About 2 weeks into the trip, it dawned on me that I didn't have the daily burping and night-time indigestion which had previously made it difficult for me to fall asleep. Once I had the idea it was related to dairy, it was easy to experiment and discover that indeed milk caused digestion problems, so I was likely lactose intolerant. This also made it easier for me to choose to go vegan a few months later.
2) I lost 30 pounds without trying, over a period of about 9 months. I lost another 10 lbs over the next few years. This made me feel much better. Due to my lower body fat, and a lower metabolism, I am colder in winter. However, in summer, I don't get uncomfortably hot anymore. This feels much better. I can add clothes when I'm cold, but it's harder to deal with being too hot.
3) My heart stopped its irregular and skipped beats. However, for a couple of weeks I tried a low-fat vegan diet, following Esselstyn's advice, and it started again. Esselstyn's advice is meant for overweight people with serious heart disease, but it was too extreme for me after I had become healthy and thin. I asked Fuhrman for advice, and he said eat nuts, especially walnuts, sunflower seeds, and brazil nuts, and sesame seeds. That fixed my problem! So it seems if I don't eat oils but do eat healthy fats such as nuts, seeds and avocado, my heart behaves perfectly--no more skipped and irregular heartbeats, yea! I also take Dr. Fuhrman's DHA Purity, a more direct source of omega-3 fatty acids, just to be sure.
4) My cholesterol went down. I avoid doctors so I don't have good records of this, but when I was 38 years old, it was 155. A year after becoming vegan, when I was 46 years old, it was 131. I don't have numbers for a year before becoming vegan which would be interesting. There are lots of success stories on the Fuhrman and McDougall websites that document dramatic cholesterol lowering from changing their diets.
10) My gum disease went away. I was getting bleeding when I flossed and had a particularly bad spot and cleanings were painful especially in that bad spot where they dug into it (ouch) and the dentists were telling me I was in the beginning stages of gum disease and that's a normal part of aging. Now my gums never bleed, and the dentists and hygenists remark about the health of my gums. Vegans tend to have a more alkaline pH than meat eaters, so I wonder if that's why my gums are healthier, in addition to my nutrient-rich diet.
13) I don't get as tired after eating, especially in the afternoon. I have lots of energy throughout the day, until night-time when I get totally exhausted (because I became an exercise fanatic after getting my health back) and go to bed. I don't seem to need as much sleep as I used to. Dr. Fuhrman says caffeine makes you sleep less but I think it made me sleep more because it wore me out more. I didn't drink it after noon so had time to let it's effects wear off by bedtime.
14) This is a benefit my housemate received. She eats whatever I cook (but unfortunately, supplements with white bread, cookies, coke, and candy bars). She used to get bouts of diarhea every few weeks. These have disappeared. Was it the E. coli bacteria in meat? I probably wasn't that careful in the kitchen. You have to treat your kitchen like a hazardous waste center when you have meat and dairy in the house. Or maybe she just didn't digest meat well. All we know is, she never gets diarhea anymore, knock on wood.
15) I used to get lower back pain and shoulder pain on a regular basis, and throw out my back or shoulder every few years. This was from about the age of 35 - 45. I get none of it now. I'm not sure how much is due to my yoga and exercise classes that have built up core, shoulder, and arm strength, and how much is due to diet which can heal or hurt your joints. I think it's a mixture.
When I went vegan, I ate pretty healthy food, in part out of ignorance (I didn't know about vegan ice cream!): grains, vegetables, beans, and fruit, and I continued to cook with oil. After about 9 months I started cutting out the oil, after discovering the McDougall, Fuhrman, and PCRM websites. I discovered the fatfreevegan website, which had great oil-free recipes. Then when I became a member of the Fuhrman website, I found even more delicious-tasting recipes including nut-based dressings and fruit-and-nut desserts, and soups with carrot juice as a base (these are in his Eat for Health book too). I adopted Dr. Fuhrman's diet which he calls "nutritarian." I didn't adopt it all at once, in part because I'm a skeptic, and because it seemed so radical. But over time, as I felt better and better with each step, I became convinced that all his advice was correct! Caffeine, alcohol, salt, and those last occasional splurges on a vegan cupcake or cookie, were the last things I "gave up", each in steps, but by the time I was ready to "give them up", it was more a desire not to have them because I didn't enjoy how I felt after eating them. And finally, I can even say that about the occasional vegan cupcake/cookie which was the last thing I let go of. I never realized how addictive sugar and refined grains are until I turned them into forbidden foods. Anyway, here is how my health has improved since adopting a healthy diet:
1) Indigestion went away immediately when I quit dairy. I discovered this by accident when I was traveling to Mexico and then Sicily in May 2005, and it was warm and I didn't feel like drinking milk (normally I drank about 2 glasses per day). About 2 weeks into the trip, it dawned on me that I didn't have the daily burping and night-time indigestion which had previously made it difficult for me to fall asleep. Once I had the idea it was related to dairy, it was easy to experiment and discover that indeed milk caused digestion problems, so I was likely lactose intolerant. This also made it easier for me to choose to go vegan a few months later.
2) I lost 30 pounds without trying, over a period of about 9 months. I lost another 10 lbs over the next few years. This made me feel much better. Due to my lower body fat, and a lower metabolism, I am colder in winter. However, in summer, I don't get uncomfortably hot anymore. This feels much better. I can add clothes when I'm cold, but it's harder to deal with being too hot.
3) My heart stopped its irregular and skipped beats. However, for a couple of weeks I tried a low-fat vegan diet, following Esselstyn's advice, and it started again. Esselstyn's advice is meant for overweight people with serious heart disease, but it was too extreme for me after I had become healthy and thin. I asked Fuhrman for advice, and he said eat nuts, especially walnuts, sunflower seeds, and brazil nuts, and sesame seeds. That fixed my problem! So it seems if I don't eat oils but do eat healthy fats such as nuts, seeds and avocado, my heart behaves perfectly--no more skipped and irregular heartbeats, yea! I also take Dr. Fuhrman's DHA Purity, a more direct source of omega-3 fatty acids, just to be sure.
4) My cholesterol went down. I avoid doctors so I don't have good records of this, but when I was 38 years old, it was 155. A year after becoming vegan, when I was 46 years old, it was 131. I don't have numbers for a year before becoming vegan which would be interesting. There are lots of success stories on the Fuhrman and McDougall websites that document dramatic cholesterol lowering from changing their diets.
5) This one amazes me the most: My aerobic capacity is unbelievable now. I have to work hard to get out of breath. I used to be the most out of breath of anyone, just going up a flight of stairs, even though I've always been an exerciser. Even though I'm older and have less muscle power than most people at my gym, I sometimes kick butt when we do the heavy aerobic activities like stair climbing and sprinting--not because I'm fast, which I'm not, but because I recover faster in between and can catch up, eventually passing most people. I now realize that all adults who eat the Standard American Diet have heart disease. I had it too before my diet change. My resting heart-beat is about 47 beats per minute. All my life since I first took my pulse in the 8th grade, it was in the upper 60s at its lowest. My blood pressure is 95/57. Yes, most doctors think this is too low but not if you are a nutritarian, according to Dr. Fuhrman.
6) My periods got much lighter and less painful. I no longer required medication (I used to take ibuprofen). This started in spring 2006 (about 9 months after becoming vegan). Then in spring 2008 I got my first skipped period. Then in Nov. 2008 I had another. I stopped having periods in Jan 2009 and have had no other symptoms of menopause. Okay, that right there should be enough to turn women on to healthy eating. I turned 49 in Apr. 2009. Dr. Fuhrman says that a pre-menopausal woman who has been a "nutritarian" for a long enough time produces less estrogen and has more estrogen receptors. Then when you go through menopause, the drop in estrogen is less dramatic, plus you have more of the receptors, so you don't have many, if any, symptoms. Maybe I got lucky and have been nutritarian for just long enough to get these benefits. what luck!
7) My allergies went away. I used to get them in spring and late summer, and it interfered with my favorite mode of transportation, biking, which seemed to make it worse (the wind got more stuff in my eyes I think). Now they are gone. Dr. Fuhrman talks about how nutritional excellence can cure allergies and a host of other inflammatory conditions including arthritis.
8) My hip pain went away. My aunt and mother get this too. Before healthy eating, I was taking ibuprofen on a regular basis (several times a week!). It was worst at night when I was going to sleep. All gone! When my aunt stopped eating dairy, the same thing happened to her. And when she eats dairy it comes back.
9) My skin has a lovely orange tint to it now. My skin used to be so pale that doctors thought I was anemic. Now people ask me where I got my tan in the middle of winter (I live in Wisconsin which has long winters). I've been told I look "golden and radiant" (needless to say, I loved hearing that). It's from eating all the leafy green vegetables, and carrots and sweet potatoes.
11) My bad breath went away (as far as I know). I used to chew gum to keep my breath fresh. Gave that up. and it turns out the artificial sweetener is bad for you--affects your insulin production like real sugar (and therefore causes weight gain). no thanks to that.
12) Constipation, hemorroids became a thing of the past. knock on wood.
13) I don't get as tired after eating, especially in the afternoon. I have lots of energy throughout the day, until night-time when I get totally exhausted (because I became an exercise fanatic after getting my health back) and go to bed. I don't seem to need as much sleep as I used to. Dr. Fuhrman says caffeine makes you sleep less but I think it made me sleep more because it wore me out more. I didn't drink it after noon so had time to let it's effects wear off by bedtime.
14) This is a benefit my housemate received. She eats whatever I cook (but unfortunately, supplements with white bread, cookies, coke, and candy bars). She used to get bouts of diarhea every few weeks. These have disappeared. Was it the E. coli bacteria in meat? I probably wasn't that careful in the kitchen. You have to treat your kitchen like a hazardous waste center when you have meat and dairy in the house. Or maybe she just didn't digest meat well. All we know is, she never gets diarhea anymore, knock on wood.
15) I used to get lower back pain and shoulder pain on a regular basis, and throw out my back or shoulder every few years. This was from about the age of 35 - 45. I get none of it now. I'm not sure how much is due to my yoga and exercise classes that have built up core, shoulder, and arm strength, and how much is due to diet which can heal or hurt your joints. I think it's a mixture.
16) I used to get nosebleeds a lot in the winter (every day or two) and thought it was due to the dry indoor air. I don't get them anymore. Maybe it's because my blood pressure went down.
17) I don't stink nearly as much as I used to in all my various orifices including my regular skin. My sweat is mostly water, and doesn't taste salty. As a result, I don't need to replace electrolytes when I exercise heavily because I'm not losing them in the first place! A little water is all I need.
collard greens
Ingredients:
1 bunch collard greens
an onion, or half of one depending on your mood
a few cloves garlic (0-4 depending on your preferences)
1 tsp - 1 Tbsp vinegar (optional), I prefer Dr. Fuhrman's spicy pecan
or lemon juice
You might be wondering, isn't steaming healthier, since you wouldn't lose as much nutrients to the water? I like steamed kale but I prefer boiled collard greens. I use not too much water, say 1/2 cup, and add a little if necessary to it doesn't boil dry. As long as there's not too much liquid left at the end, you will ingest most of the nutrients. I cook it up for about 20-30 minutes.
1 bunch collard greens
an onion, or half of one depending on your mood
a few cloves garlic (0-4 depending on your preferences)
1 tsp - 1 Tbsp vinegar (optional), I prefer Dr. Fuhrman's spicy pecan
or lemon juice
pepper (optional)
red pepper flakes (optional)
red pepper flakes (optional)
minced ginger (say, 1 Tbsp, optional)
spoonful of date sugar (optional, if you are using lemon, may keep it from being too tart)
spices (optional)
Chop the onion, start boiling in water water to cover. Chop the garlic, add. Wash each collard green, remove stem, chop, add to pan. Add the red pepper flakes and spices. Add vinegar or lemon at some point (I'm actually not sure when. It's supposed to cut down on the bitter taste so that makes me think it should be early in the cooking process, but a lot of people don't add it until it's served on their plates, so I don't know--if you know, let me know).
spices (optional)
Chop the onion, start boiling in water water to cover. Chop the garlic, add. Wash each collard green, remove stem, chop, add to pan. Add the red pepper flakes and spices. Add vinegar or lemon at some point (I'm actually not sure when. It's supposed to cut down on the bitter taste so that makes me think it should be early in the cooking process, but a lot of people don't add it until it's served on their plates, so I don't know--if you know, let me know).
No need to add in all the optional things. These are just variations I've tried depending on what was or was not on hand. For example, once I didn't have garlic, but I had ginger. Once I used lemon juice and then thought it might need some date sugar (so I've only added date sugar once after making this hundreds of times). If you have leeks, try them instead of onions. or green onions. or ramps. if you have nothing but collard greens, they are probably going to taste great all by themselves, so go for it. Add some beets if you happen to have them. Or sweet potato (wait until the end to add them because they only take 5-10 minutes).
You might be wondering, isn't steaming healthier, since you wouldn't lose as much nutrients to the water? I like steamed kale but I prefer boiled collard greens. I use not too much water, say 1/2 cup, and add a little if necessary to it doesn't boil dry. As long as there's not too much liquid left at the end, you will ingest most of the nutrients. I cook it up for about 20-30 minutes.
Beans
This is easy, delicious and has lots of protein.
Ingredients:
2 cups dried beans (or so; I mean, if you have 1.5-2.5 in your jar, that will be fine)
1 onion, or more if you have extra or small ones etc, and depending on your mood
few cloves garlic
spices
Go back into time to the night before. Rinse the beans and then soak them. Put a lot more water than beans because the beans will absorb a lot. Next morning, rinse the beans, add water, this time not so much, maybe only an inch above the beans. Turn on the stove. Chop the onion and garlic and add. Pick out your spices and add. You can let the beans boil, or if you are like me and are running off to your exercise class, just turn the stove to the place where you know they will simmer at (medium-low on my stove), put the lid on, and run out the door. I have a roommate who can make sure the house doesn't burn down. This only takes 10 minutes. Then when you come home after your long morning of exercise/work/goofing off, the beans are ready. If you don't have a house-mate and don't want to leave the burner on, a crockpot on high will work but will take longer. But that's okay, have them for dinner.
Now, for the spices. This is fun to experiment with. For white beans, I've been using "Fines Herbs," "Herbs du Province," and Bouquet Garni. These are just mixtures and are not necessary, I just happen to have them and was looking for something to put them in. Herbs de provence has savory, thyme, rosemary, basil, tarragon, lavendar flowers. Bouquet Garni has savory, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, dill, marjoram, sage, and tarragon. Most people have thyme and basil and that would work fine. Oregano would probably be good too. I'd total maybe 3 tsp of spices. But that is a personal choice. For pinto beans I've been using cumin and I think oregano. In the summer I add herbs from the garden at the table.
I've found adding a can of tomatoes to both pinto and white beans is also good. We can our garden tomatoes and have them all year round.
Adding all the ingredients at the beginning adds flavor to the beans and it's so easy!
Ingredients:
2 cups dried beans (or so; I mean, if you have 1.5-2.5 in your jar, that will be fine)
1 onion, or more if you have extra or small ones etc, and depending on your mood
few cloves garlic
spices
Go back into time to the night before. Rinse the beans and then soak them. Put a lot more water than beans because the beans will absorb a lot. Next morning, rinse the beans, add water, this time not so much, maybe only an inch above the beans. Turn on the stove. Chop the onion and garlic and add. Pick out your spices and add. You can let the beans boil, or if you are like me and are running off to your exercise class, just turn the stove to the place where you know they will simmer at (medium-low on my stove), put the lid on, and run out the door. I have a roommate who can make sure the house doesn't burn down. This only takes 10 minutes. Then when you come home after your long morning of exercise/work/goofing off, the beans are ready. If you don't have a house-mate and don't want to leave the burner on, a crockpot on high will work but will take longer. But that's okay, have them for dinner.
Now, for the spices. This is fun to experiment with. For white beans, I've been using "Fines Herbs," "Herbs du Province," and Bouquet Garni. These are just mixtures and are not necessary, I just happen to have them and was looking for something to put them in. Herbs de provence has savory, thyme, rosemary, basil, tarragon, lavendar flowers. Bouquet Garni has savory, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, dill, marjoram, sage, and tarragon. Most people have thyme and basil and that would work fine. Oregano would probably be good too. I'd total maybe 3 tsp of spices. But that is a personal choice. For pinto beans I've been using cumin and I think oregano. In the summer I add herbs from the garden at the table.
I've found adding a can of tomatoes to both pinto and white beans is also good. We can our garden tomatoes and have them all year round.
Adding all the ingredients at the beginning adds flavor to the beans and it's so easy!
June 20th food
Breakfast: smoothie
snack: apple and small peach
Lunch: collard greens and a bowl of beans. Last night I was looking at Ruth Heidrich's $5 CHEF/Raw cookbook (I recommend it) and she was talking about spices and reminded me of ginger and cinnamon. So I added both to the collard greens and beans and it was good. I also added a touch of Dr. Fuhrman's Spicy Pecan vinegar to the collard greens. I'm not a big fan of vinegar but his are not as strong. My beans were a mixture of the bottoms of several jars: pinto, black-eyed pea, and white. I like to use them all up before buying new so they don't get old. Then I buy a whole bunch again. All I have left now are black beans. So the spices I added to the beans were cumin, thyme, ginger, and cinnamon. Wierd eh? Well, I thought the cumin went well with the pinto beans, and the thyme with the white beans and I was just in a mood for ginger and cinnamon. But I was fearful, so only added a half teaspoon each. They turned out great. Housemate gave them thumbs up. I think it's hard to ruin beans, unless you boil off too much water and burn them. I was going to add some ground walnuts to the collard greens to get my fat, but forgot so had a handful of walnuts for dessert. Oh, and had one walnut in a date, microwaved.
snack: half of small cantaloupe, 8 oz strawberries
Dinner: salad with green lettuce and salad greens, small mango (peeled, sliced), half an avocado, couple sprigs cilantro, chives. I was in the mood for lettuce. You really develop a taste for it after a while. And both the lettuce and salad greens were fresh, organic and locally grown. The cilantro and chives were from the garden. They aren't necessary but when you got 'em, it's great.
Dessert: grapes
I probably snack too much...and the beans made me feel too full. Maybe I should limit myself to 1 cup max.
snack: apple and small peach
Lunch: collard greens and a bowl of beans. Last night I was looking at Ruth Heidrich's $5 CHEF/Raw cookbook (I recommend it) and she was talking about spices and reminded me of ginger and cinnamon. So I added both to the collard greens and beans and it was good. I also added a touch of Dr. Fuhrman's Spicy Pecan vinegar to the collard greens. I'm not a big fan of vinegar but his are not as strong. My beans were a mixture of the bottoms of several jars: pinto, black-eyed pea, and white. I like to use them all up before buying new so they don't get old. Then I buy a whole bunch again. All I have left now are black beans. So the spices I added to the beans were cumin, thyme, ginger, and cinnamon. Wierd eh? Well, I thought the cumin went well with the pinto beans, and the thyme with the white beans and I was just in a mood for ginger and cinnamon. But I was fearful, so only added a half teaspoon each. They turned out great. Housemate gave them thumbs up. I think it's hard to ruin beans, unless you boil off too much water and burn them. I was going to add some ground walnuts to the collard greens to get my fat, but forgot so had a handful of walnuts for dessert. Oh, and had one walnut in a date, microwaved.
snack: half of small cantaloupe, 8 oz strawberries
Dinner: salad with green lettuce and salad greens, small mango (peeled, sliced), half an avocado, couple sprigs cilantro, chives. I was in the mood for lettuce. You really develop a taste for it after a while. And both the lettuce and salad greens were fresh, organic and locally grown. The cilantro and chives were from the garden. They aren't necessary but when you got 'em, it's great.
Dessert: grapes
I probably snack too much...and the beans made me feel too full. Maybe I should limit myself to 1 cup max.
A Third Look Down the Rabbit Hole - Universal Health Care
Hot Air has a stunning post about the Oregonian State Health Care System that is refusing to pay for cancer treatment, but notified the patient they would cover "doctor-assisted suicide" if she chooses!
Speaking "Democrat"
OK, I found this humorous, but it really makes me wonder how productive this is and who paid the kinkos bill for those fancy charts. Is this really what we want our elected officials spending their time and our Congressional efforts on?
I Might Have a Clinical Disorder...
...called internet addiction. I may not be alone, however, according to this article:
" Early research into the subject found highly educated, socially awkward men were the most likely sufferers but more recent work suggests it is now more of a problem for middle-aged women who are spending hours at home on their computers."After reviewing the symptoms, though, I think I can safely rule myself out. But very interesting development in this world of ours.
The Detergent Church - Final Post
Here's the final post expounding on points 6-10. Here are the links if you haven't read parts 1 and 2 or part 3. An excerpt from the final post that resonates with me:
"The Detergent Church doesn't shun the role of the mind in the life of the believer. Like our testicles, we like our brains and believe that we don't have to check either at the door of the church to be a Christian. The Detergent Church thinks it is a sin and a scandal for congregants to stay stupid and not be able to give an answer for that which they believe. Yep, they take Jesus' command to love God with all their minds seriously."
New Poll: Chidren Don't Want Health Care!
Breaking News! This should put a new wrinkle in the Dems socialist agenda.
Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare
Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare
Asparagus and ...
We are getting lots of local fresh asparagus this time of year so I'm gobbling it up. The simplist thing to do is steam it and add a little lemon and a little date sugar if you want a little sweetness. Date sugar is just ground dates and you can get it in a health food store. Or don't bother with the sweetness and just enjoy the full flavor of the asparagus! You can add to that ground sunflower seeds and/or pumpkin seeds. Finally you can add to that a peeled, sliced mango or pineapple (I prefer mango). Any combination of these ingredients is good. For example, on Saturday I think I will eat my next bunch of asparagus with lemon and ground sunflower seeds. So to make it look like a real recipe here it is.
Ingredients:
1 bunch asparagus
slice of lemon
1-2 Tbsp raw sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds (I keep these in my freezer)
1 ripe mango, peeled and sliced (optional)
Chop off the ends of the asparagus, then chop the rest into your favorite size (I usually do ~three pieces per). Steam. I leave out the tops for about 5 minutes because they cook faster than the stems.
Grind the sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds in a coffee grinder.
Put the asparagus in a bowl, squeeze the lemon from the slice (don't need much). I then mix it up with my hands to spread the lemon around. Add the seeds and the optional mango.
Dr. Fuhrman says that fat with a meal helps you absorb nutrients. But it has to be healthy fats like sunfower seeds (not oils). And seeds also gives you protein which I want since I'm trying to build a little muscle on my scrawny frame. However, the asparagus alone has about 6 grams of protein. I added 1 Tbsp sunflower and 1 Tbsp of pumpkin seeds. I think that added another 6 grams or so. So a good high protein meal.
Ingredients:
1 bunch asparagus
slice of lemon
1-2 Tbsp raw sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds (I keep these in my freezer)
1 ripe mango, peeled and sliced (optional)
Chop off the ends of the asparagus, then chop the rest into your favorite size (I usually do ~three pieces per). Steam. I leave out the tops for about 5 minutes because they cook faster than the stems.
Grind the sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds in a coffee grinder.
Put the asparagus in a bowl, squeeze the lemon from the slice (don't need much). I then mix it up with my hands to spread the lemon around. Add the seeds and the optional mango.
Dr. Fuhrman says that fat with a meal helps you absorb nutrients. But it has to be healthy fats like sunfower seeds (not oils). And seeds also gives you protein which I want since I'm trying to build a little muscle on my scrawny frame. However, the asparagus alone has about 6 grams of protein. I added 1 Tbsp sunflower and 1 Tbsp of pumpkin seeds. I think that added another 6 grams or so. So a good high protein meal.
June 19th food
It was an exciting day at the grocery store. The shelves were full of locally grown (organic) produce! So I went crazy. I had already put a bunch of fruit in my cart but I think next time I will just fill it with local stuff, which is mostly greens right now. And they are cheap! Here are my meals:
Breakfast: smoothie (I have this every day)
Lunch: Asparagus and pineapple
Snacks: I went crazy. The strawberries (the Driscoll organic that you can get in practically every grocery store in the country) were the best I've ever had from a store. I ate the entire 16 oz box. it was so good. Then I also ate my bag of cherries. That was only 8 oz. and a few grapes. I am quite the pig. And yet, I am pretty thin. but still I shouldn't be quite such a pig. But I don't regret the strawberries.
Dinner: I haven't done this yet but I'm going to meet a friend at the Terrace so took out a green smoothie from the freezer and will bring that. Frozen green smoothies are handy away-from-home meals.
Breakfast: smoothie (I have this every day)
Lunch: Asparagus and pineapple
Snacks: I went crazy. The strawberries (the Driscoll organic that you can get in practically every grocery store in the country) were the best I've ever had from a store. I ate the entire 16 oz box. it was so good. Then I also ate my bag of cherries. That was only 8 oz. and a few grapes. I am quite the pig. And yet, I am pretty thin. but still I shouldn't be quite such a pig. But I don't regret the strawberries.
Dinner: I haven't done this yet but I'm going to meet a friend at the Terrace so took out a green smoothie from the freezer and will bring that. Frozen green smoothies are handy away-from-home meals.
Pretty Good Hummus
I'm still working on my hummus recipe but this is better than last time.
You need a food processor for this
Ingredients:
1 cup dried chickpeas of 15 oz can of no-salt chickpeas.
1-2 garlic cloves
1 tsp ground cumin
Juice on 1 lemon
1/2 avocado
Couple of fresh basil leaves, chives if you happen to have them in our garden and it's summer (optional)
1/2 peeled, diced sweet potato, steamed until soft (optional)
If you are using dried chickpeas (they taste better), soak overnight, then cook up in the morning for about 4 hours. Drain, but save some of the cooking water.
Throw the garlic in the food processor and blend it. Add the chickpeas, avocado, sweet potato, cumin, and half the lemon juice. Blend. Taste it, and add more lemon juice to taste. Add chickpea water if you need more liquid. Blend some more. When it's nice and smooth, then add the herbs and blend for short time, just enough to chop the herbs but not pummel them.
A normal hummus recipe has 1-2 Tbsp tahini plus olive oil, instead of avocado, and no sweet potato. I'm not a big fan of tahini and think oil is evil, but want the creamy consistency, so tried the avocado instead. Of course, it adds (healthy) fat, so if you are watching your calories, don't add the avocado, or add less. If you don't care about the calories and want it real creamy, throw the whole avocado in (without the pit and the skin of course).
You need a food processor for this
Ingredients:
1 cup dried chickpeas of 15 oz can of no-salt chickpeas.
1-2 garlic cloves
1 tsp ground cumin
Juice on 1 lemon
1/2 avocado
Couple of fresh basil leaves, chives if you happen to have them in our garden and it's summer (optional)
1/2 peeled, diced sweet potato, steamed until soft (optional)
If you are using dried chickpeas (they taste better), soak overnight, then cook up in the morning for about 4 hours. Drain, but save some of the cooking water.
Throw the garlic in the food processor and blend it. Add the chickpeas, avocado, sweet potato, cumin, and half the lemon juice. Blend. Taste it, and add more lemon juice to taste. Add chickpea water if you need more liquid. Blend some more. When it's nice and smooth, then add the herbs and blend for short time, just enough to chop the herbs but not pummel them.
A normal hummus recipe has 1-2 Tbsp tahini plus olive oil, instead of avocado, and no sweet potato. I'm not a big fan of tahini and think oil is evil, but want the creamy consistency, so tried the avocado instead. Of course, it adds (healthy) fat, so if you are watching your calories, don't add the avocado, or add less. If you don't care about the calories and want it real creamy, throw the whole avocado in (without the pit and the skin of course).
Spinach-Mango Green Smoothie
Serves 2
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
2 small oranges: peel, cut in quarters and remove seeds (or juice the oranges if you prefer)
1 oz walnuts (or cashews or pecans) or seeds (hemp, sunflower, or pumpkin)
5 oz spinach
1 10 oz bag frozen mangos
1 10 oz bag frozen mangos
frozen banana
Put the walnuts and part of orange juice blender. Add the spinach on top. Blend. Add everything else and blend again.
If you use 5 oz of spinach, you can't taste it, and it tastes like a delicious mango-orange-banana smoothie. Then you can get brave and use the stronger greens like salad greens, kale, and collard greens. A little lemon juice balances the bitter of these stronger greens (say, 1 Tbsp).
If you use 5 oz of spinach, you can't taste it, and it tastes like a delicious mango-orange-banana smoothie. Then you can get brave and use the stronger greens like salad greens, kale, and collard greens. A little lemon juice balances the bitter of these stronger greens (say, 1 Tbsp).
I usually freeze one or both servings for later.
breakfast smoothie
Serves 2. Share with someone or freeze the second serving and thaw when you are ready to eat it.
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
1/4 cup walnuts or other nut (pecans, pistachio, almond, cashew are all good) or 2 Tbsp raw sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds
1 frozen banana (buy a bunch of bananas, when they are ripe with brown spots, peel, break into pieces, put each banana into a separate plastic bag and freeze)
1 bag frozen berries (8-10 oz), or combine half bags of different berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, mixed berries)
14-16 oz water, or mixture of water and/or berry juice and/or soy milk. Housemate likes all berry juice
1 bag frozen berries (8-10 oz), or combine half bags of different berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, mixed berries)
14-16 oz water, or mixture of water and/or berry juice and/or soy milk. Housemate likes all berry juice
Blend nuts in some of the juice (throw in your vitamins if you don't like taking pills) in a high-powered blender until smooth. Add the frozen banana and berries. Blend until smooth. YUM!
June 18th food
There's a lot I want to discuss but I had a long day at work so will just have to save it for another day. Here is what I ate today:
After exercise snack: apple
Late breakfast: smoothie
Lunch: Today I ate the last of the veggies in the fridge before shopping tomorrow. So for lunch it was a beet and it's greens cooked up in a small amount of water, with a half of a sweet potato. Easy and good. Next course was some carrots and broccoli lightly steamed, and some sliced red and green pepper---these were dipped in yesterday's leftover hummus.
Dessert: date with pit removed and stuffed with 1/2 tsp raw sunflower seeds, microwaved for 10 seconds. Really good. Probably not so good for my teeth.
Snacks: A big handful of baby romaine lettuce (this is a great snack to eat out of the bag). Another apple (really good), a banana.
Dinner: A bunch of kale steamed. Added a cashew sauce: boiled part of an onion, in water, added a chopped date and cashews, blended it in a blender to make the sauce. Very good.
Is this a lot of food? Maybe. I don't feel too full so I think it was okay. The banana wasn't necessary. I noticed that the apple tasted just as good as yesterday's tofutti cutie. so that's something to keep in mind. The apple was a "pink lady". I'm trying out different types. This was good. That reminds me that the quality of your produce really matters. Fresh organic produce tastes better. I'm lucky to have the best grocery store I've ever shopped at only a 4 mile bike ride away. Okay, next posts will be recipes...
After exercise snack: apple
Late breakfast: smoothie
Lunch: Today I ate the last of the veggies in the fridge before shopping tomorrow. So for lunch it was a beet and it's greens cooked up in a small amount of water, with a half of a sweet potato. Easy and good. Next course was some carrots and broccoli lightly steamed, and some sliced red and green pepper---these were dipped in yesterday's leftover hummus.
Dessert: date with pit removed and stuffed with 1/2 tsp raw sunflower seeds, microwaved for 10 seconds. Really good. Probably not so good for my teeth.
Snacks: A big handful of baby romaine lettuce (this is a great snack to eat out of the bag). Another apple (really good), a banana.
Dinner: A bunch of kale steamed. Added a cashew sauce: boiled part of an onion, in water, added a chopped date and cashews, blended it in a blender to make the sauce. Very good.
Is this a lot of food? Maybe. I don't feel too full so I think it was okay. The banana wasn't necessary. I noticed that the apple tasted just as good as yesterday's tofutti cutie. so that's something to keep in mind. The apple was a "pink lady". I'm trying out different types. This was good. That reminds me that the quality of your produce really matters. Fresh organic produce tastes better. I'm lucky to have the best grocery store I've ever shopped at only a 4 mile bike ride away. Okay, next posts will be recipes...
6 Reasons Pastors Should Blog by John Piper
Here's food for thought about blogging. Check out the whole article, but here are his 6 reasons:
Pastors should blog:
Pastors should blog:
- ...to write
- ...to teach
- ...to recommend
- ...to interact
- ...to develop an eye for what is meaningful
- ...to be known
John Piper's Response to the SCOTUS Decision
It seems a lot is being said in response to the SCOTUS' recent decision. I have left it untouched because of this. However, I came across John Piper's response and was encouraged. He finds the good even in a potentially harmful decision. Thanks for pointing my thoughts this way:
"...Don’t let this go by without wonder and gratitude. Here is the most powerful leader in the world standing in public in the middle of Europe and saying for the whole world to hear that some of his decisions are nullified and his authority is curtailed and that he will submit to it.Imagine such a thing in Myanmar or North Korea or China or Vietnam or in a half a dozen African regimes. Unthinkable.
What an incredible privilege we have to live in a land where human power is checked...."
THE List of Obama's Accomplishments
Here is THE list that I've been wanting to see for a long time now. It probably is the most concise and comprehensive review of Obama's political activity that I've seen. It is reasonably fair (meaning not overtly derogatory) and worth your full attention.
The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton
Reading this book about Saint Thomas Aquinas by GKC was an odd experience for me. First, I was reading about a man whom I knew very little about, which gave me a great perspective. Some actually consider this book the best book about Aquinas to be written. But what made this truly odd was that I possibly thought as much about GKC as I did Aquinas as I read. GKC has such a brilliant mind, and thus, writing style, that I had to refrain from highlighting every sentence. To learn a fact about one man while admiring, and being amazed by, the man writing about the man is a unique encounter for me. Hopefully in the following quotes you will see what I mean.
Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).
I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:
About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.
"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).
"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).
"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).
"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).
"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).
"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).
"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).
St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).
"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).
"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).
About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).
"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).
"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).
"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).
"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).
Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).
About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).
About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.
About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).
"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.
GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).
About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).
"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).
About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).
About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).
About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).
"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).
"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).
About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).
"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?
"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).
"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).
"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).
Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).
Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).
I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:
About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.
"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).
"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).
"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).
"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).
"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).
"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).
"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).
St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).
"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).
"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).
About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).
"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).
"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).
"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).
"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).
Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).
About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).
About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.
About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).
"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.
GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).
About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).
"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).
About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).
About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).
About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).
"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).
"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).
About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).
"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?
"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).
"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).
"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).
Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).
You Can't Lead if You Don't Show Up
The first priority of having any job is SHOWING UP! How can Obama continue to NOT Vote on issues in the Senate. This continues his political career as a Senator in name only.
British Psychology Society
I came across an interesting blog tonight: The British Psychological Society Research Digest Blog. There were several articles I found provocative.
Possession is 9/10 of the Law (even for adults):
In one study, trying to determine how 2 year olds determine ownership, they observed that whoever is identified as having the item first is the owner, no matter what. The only exception they could see was if it was explicitly stated the "owner" gave the item as a wrapped gift to the second person. Then the children identified the second person as the owner. The researchers concluded:
Illustrations and Object Lessons - A Math Lesson for Preachers:
In a study that found practical examples used to teach abstract functions in Math class were more debilitating for students when they were required to perform the same function in a new situation -- simply: "Students taught with the metaphorical aid of water jugs, slices of pizza or tennis balls in a container, were unable to transfer what they'd learned." The study concludes:
Possession is 9/10 of the Law (even for adults):
In one study, trying to determine how 2 year olds determine ownership, they observed that whoever is identified as having the item first is the owner, no matter what. The only exception they could see was if it was explicitly stated the "owner" gave the item as a wrapped gift to the second person. Then the children identified the second person as the owner. The researchers concluded:
"...the most important next step was to find out where young children get this rule about first possession from. They surmised that it could be learned from hearing utterances like ‘‘It’s her doll, she had it first’’, or it could be innate, the product of a "cognitive system dedicated to reasoning about ownership."Maybe there's something innate that God gave us to bring us back to him when we consider who "owned" us first.
Illustrations and Object Lessons - A Math Lesson for Preachers:
In a study that found practical examples used to teach abstract functions in Math class were more debilitating for students when they were required to perform the same function in a new situation -- simply: "Students taught with the metaphorical aid of water jugs, slices of pizza or tennis balls in a container, were unable to transfer what they'd learned." The study concludes:
"Kaminski's team said that although concrete examples might be more engaging, it seems they may also constrain students' ability to transfer relevant knowledge to a different situation.The thought that immediately came to my mind is how we attempt to teach children and youth the more ethereal truths of Scripture (i.e. God's being, the Trinity, regeneration, prayer, etc) with our own "slices of pizza and tennis ball" analogies. However, after considering that almost 66% of teens leave the church and their faith after they leave youth group, maybe there is some insight into this study that is relevant for Bible teachers and youth pastors: if we want Disciples of Christ to possess a usable and transferable knowledge of a transcendent God, maybe we shouldn't try so hard to make him "understandable". Sometimes the abstract and the Mystery that is our Creator and Savior is essential to embrace.
The researchers concluded: "If a goal of teaching mathematics is to produce knowledge that students can apply to multiple situations, then presenting mathematical concepts through generic instantiations, such as traditional symbolic notation, may be more effective than a series of 'good examples'.""
June 17th food
Okay, quickly before bed, let's get started with today's successes and failures. I knew I was going to be gone most of the day so brought food with me. Went to my 7:30 am exercise class. We ran up and down stairs for 25 minutes. Like I said in my last post, I notice I don't get out of breath as much as others. My muscles tire before I lose my breath. It used to be very much the opposite and I would get out of breath before my muscles tired. I think this is because my arteries have cleared up after being vegan for almost 3 years. After that, did some work in a coffee shop before my dentist appointment, and drank my breakfast smoothie. Had some decaff coffee. I went off caffeine a year and a half ago. Believe it or not, that feels great. Okay, I get tired sometimes when I don't sleep enough, but overall I have more energy. Plus I think caffeine is part of our societal brain washing to make us work harder so the rich guy at the top can make more money. Today I decided, maybe I should give up decaff coffee too. I don't drink it much, but may as well give it up if I'm going to try this healthy experiment, and it won't be painful since I'm not addicted to caffeine. Okay, then I met a friend for lunch at the Union terrace (favorite hangout in Madison WI). She was going to get a burrito at Chipotle's. It's okay to stray from perfection every once in a while but I just had a burrito yesterday at a potluck so I wanted to eat more healthy so I brought a green smoothie I had in the freezer. I like these green smoothies as much as any fattening dairy dessert (I'm a whacko). When I came home in the evening, I chatted with my neighbors who happen to be vegan and they offered me a tofutti cutie. It's a vegan ice cream sandwich. It is so good. I ate one. So I have failed on my first day! I haven't had one of those in a year or two. Well, at least they are small, half the size of the familiar ice cream sandwich. But they are junk food. But it was good. Then I came home and finally made a hummus I like. I've just not been satisfied with the hummus recipes without olive oil. It's not creamy enough. This time I added avocado and a little steamed sweet potato to the normal recipe and I like it. I also took out the tahini. I am not a big fan of tahini. I had that with lightly steamed carrots and broccoli. It was delicious. but I ate too much of the delicious hummus and felt like exploding. Then to top it off, since I figured I'd blown it already I decided to finish it off with a brazil nut stuffed date. This is a great treat. You remove the pit from the date and stick in a nut, like a pecan or brazil nut or walnut. Microwave it for 5-10 seconds. It's good! Well, this blog would sound better if I left out my mistakes but I decided I should be honest and tell you my failures too. The stuff date would have been okay without the tofutti cutie.
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