Royal Raymond Rife was a scientific genius ***

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Local man convicted of selling fake cure!By Ryan
FDA never approved the medical device
By Keith Darcé
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. February 19, 2009
FEDERAL COURT — A federal jury has convicted a San Diego man of selling an unapproved medical device that he claimed could treat a wide range of conditions and diseases with electrical currents.
James Folsom, 68, faces a possible sentence of more than 140 years in prison and $500,000 in fines for 26 felony counts. He is being jailed while awaiting sentencing on May 11.
Between 1997 and last year, Folsom sold more than 9,000 devices with names such as NatureTronics, AstroPulse, BioSolutions, Energy Wellness and Global Wellness. He distributed them to wholesalers and retail consumers.
The business generated more than $8 million in revenue over that time, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt in San Diego.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Melanie Pierson said the case was the largest involving illegal medical devices that she has seen in 20 years working as a prosecutor in San Diego County.
During Folsom’s trial, which ended Tuesday in U.S. District Court, officials for the Food and Drug Administration testified that his device was never submitted to the agency for review.
Folsom is a former business associate of Kimberly Bailey, a Fallbrook woman who sold similar devices until she was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for plotting the kidnapping, torture and murder of her business partner and lover.
Folsom’s device is made up of a small black box with dials, a digital screen and wires leading to a pair of stainless steel cylinders or metal plates. The box is plugged into an electrical socket, and a patient holds the cylinders or stands on the plates.
Marketing material found on several Web sites said the device uses electrical frequencies to destroy diseased cells in the body. It also said the device was inspired by the work of San Diego inventor Royal Raymond Rife, who in the 1930s theorized that cells could be destroyed by directing precise radio frequencies at them.
Rife believed cancers, viruses and other illnesses could be treated with the technology. He could never prove his ideas, and the medical community widely discredited his work.
Or did he? In 1934, Dr. Rife opened a clinic, which successfully cured 16 of 16 cases within 120 days. Working with some of the most respected researchers in America along with leading doctors from Southern California, he electronically destroyed the cancer virus in patients, allowing their own immune systems to restore health. A Special Research Committee of the University of Southern California oversaw the laboratory research and the experimental treatments until the end of the 1930s. Follow-up clinics conducted in 1935, 1936 and 1937 by the head of the U.S.C. Medical Committee verified the results of the 1934 clinic. In his 1953 book, Dr. Rife wrote about the cancer clinics:
“The first clinical work on cancer was completed under the supervision of Milbank Johnson, M.D. which was set up under a Special Medical Research Committee of the University of Southern California. 16 cases were treated at the clinic for many types of malignancy. After 3 months, 14 of these so-called hopeless cases were signed off as clinically cured by the staff of five medical doctors and Dr. Alvin G. Ford, M.D. Pathologist for the group.
http://www.docgeorge.com/20080425146/Rife-Bioresonance-Device.html
Prosecutors said Folsom conducted business under false names to avoid detection by the FDA. He also marketed the device “for investigative purposes,” giving potential buyers a false impression that the equipment was being considered for FDA approval.
Medical devices must be reasonably safe and effective for the FDA to approve them, said Bob Gatling, head of the FDA office that maintains records on device evaluations and a witness at the trial.
The FDA’s process for assessing medical devices has come under increasing fire. Some scientists say the agency watered down its standards while President George W. Bush was in office, according to a January story by The New York Times. Congress launched an investigation into the matter in November.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/feb/19/1m19convict002422-local-man-convicted-selling-fake/?zIndex=55264
-Okay now i must rant a little bit. I do not know James Folsom and or what devices he is selling, but i must tell you that Royal Raymond Rife was a scientific genius and what this reporter probably didn’t know was that Rife’s work was not just theory in fact the same newspaper San Diego Evening Tribune that wrote this story actually covered Rife’s brillant work. From the 1930’s-50’s he was in a ton of newspapers. His work made the front page several times.

Will It Ever Stop? ***

These Colors Cannot Run... Afghanistan
By Norman Solomon

March 24, 2009 "Commondreams" -- -Is your representative speaking out against escalation of the Afghanistan war?

Last week, some members of Congress sent President Obama a letter that urged him to "reconsider" his order deploying 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Everyone in the House of Representatives had ample opportunity to sign onto the letter. Beginning in late February, it circulated on Capitol Hill for more than two weeks. The letter was the most organized congressional move so far to challenge escalation of the war in Afghanistan.
But the list of signers was awfully short.

California: Bob Filner, Michael Honda
Hawaii: Neil Abercrombie
Kentucky: Ed Whitfield
Maryland: Roscoe Bartlett
Massachusetts: Jim McGovern
Michigan: John Conyers
North Carolina: Howard Coble, Walter Jones
Ohio: Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich
Tennessee: John Duncan
Texas: Ron Paul
Wisconsin: Steve Kagen

We desperately need a substantive national debate on U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the Obama administration says that the problems of the region cannot be solved by military means, the basic approach is reliance on heightened military means.

One of several journalists in Afghanistan on a tour "organized by the staff of commanding Gen. David D. McKiernan," the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, wrote a March 23 op-ed in support of an invigorated "counterinsurgency strategy." With journalistic resolve, he explained: "Everyone expects a surge of violence and American casualties this year; no one expects a decisive improvement in the situation for at least several years beyond that."

The commanding general, Diehl added, does not anticipate that the Afghan army "can defend the country on its own" until 2016. In effect, the message is to stay the course for another seven years: "The thousands of American soldiers and civilians pouring into the country deserve that strategic patience; without it, the sacrifices we will soon hear of will be wasted."
And so, with chillingly familiar echoes, goes the perverse logic of escalating the war in Afghanistan. "Strategic patience" -- more and more war -- will be necessary so that those who must die will not have died in vain.

In contrast, the letter from the 14 members of the House (eight Democrats, six Republicans) lays down a clear line of opposition to the rationales for stepping up the warfare.
"If the intent is to leave behind a stable Afghanistan capable of governing itself, this military escalation may well be counterproductive," the letter says. And it warns that "any perceived military success in Afghanistan might create pressure to increase military activity in Pakistan. This could very well lead to dangerous destabilization in the region and would increase hostility toward the United States."

More than 400 members of the House declined to sign the letter. In effect, they failed to join in a historic challenge to a prevailing assumption -- that the U.S. government must use massive violence for many more years to try to work Washington's will on Afghanistan.

An old red-white-and-blue bumper sticker says: "These colors don't run."
A newer one says: "These colors don't run... the world."
Now, it's time for another twist: "These colors won't run... Afghanistan."
But denial and evasion are in the political air.

Norman Solomon is a journalist, historian, and progressive activist. His book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. His most recent book is "Made Love, Got War." He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

How many deaths will it take until we shout "No More!"? How many broken hearts, broken lives will it take before all aggression ends? My screams go ignored! Calm pleas are less than useless. Our intervention or nosing into others lives most definitely will beget more hatred for the US as Mr Soloman suggests could happen. Then what happens? Retaliation, that's what.

I would think any fool would know that push comes to shove, then more shoves and pushes. Would you take your country being invaded and its people dying wantonly lying down with a smile? I doubt that very much. Is our planet to always be at war? I sincerely wish not. Others aren't, you know. We surely are still asleep.

Words From Clarence Darrow ***

"The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellowmen. In youth he may have learned the command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor's heart - and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word." Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

Wisdom of the Ages - Profound ***

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish. ~Albert Einstein

Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today. ~Author Unknown

If you fall in the mud puddle, check your pockets for fish. -- Source unknown

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~ A Course in Miracles

"Absence of consciousness is ego. Whenever the ego is absent, God is present." ~Osho

Events come and go. This is the wheel of maya. Let the wheel spin around you without your attachment to any part of it. Let go of the spokes. Live in the center. That is the real. ~Babaji

God cannot be lost...relax. There is nobody blocking the way...relax. There is no hurry because God is not something in time...relax. There is nowhere to go because God is not distant in some star...relax. You cannot miss in the very nature of things...relax. Don't seek, don't search, don't ask, don't knock, don't demand...relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, you start vibrating with it. ~Osho

When one's own true nature is known, then there is being without beginning and end. It is unbroken awareness bliss. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

By grace I live. By grace I am released. By grace I give. By grace I will release. ~ A Course in Miracles

Escapee ***

Before his daring escape from prison, an infamous criminal had been photographed from four different angles.The FBI sent copies of the pictures to police chiefs all across the land, with orders to notify Washington the moment an arrest was made.The next day, the Bureau received a faxed reply from the ambitious sheriff of a small Southern town:"PICTURES RECEIVED. ALL FOUR SHOT DEAD WHILE RESISTING ARREST."

AP IMPACT:Mentally ill a threat in nursing homes***

CHICAGO – Ivory Jackson had Alzheimer's, but that wasn't what killed him. At 77, he was smashed in the face with a clock radio as he lay in his nursing home bed.

Jackson's roommate — a mentally ill man nearly 30 years younger — was arrested and charged with the killing. Police found him sitting next to the nurse's station, blood on his hands, clothes and shoes. Inside their room, the ceiling was spattered with blood.

"Why didn't they do what they needed to do to protect my dad?" wondered Jackson's stepson, Russell Smith.

Over the past several years, nursing homes have become dumping grounds for young and middle-age people with mental illness, according to Associated Press interviews and an analysis of data from all 50 states. And that has proved a prescription for violence, as Jackson's case and others across the country illustrate.

Younger, stronger residents with schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder are living beside frail senior citizens, and sometimes taking their rage out on them.

"Sadly, we're seeing the tragic results of the failure of federal and state governments to provide appropriate treatment and housing for those with mental illnesses and to provide a safe environment for the frail elderly," said Janet Wells, director of public policy for the National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform.

Numbers obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and prepared exclusively for the AP by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show nearly 125,000 young and middle-aged adults with serious mental illness lived in U.S. nursing homes last year.

click on link http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090322/ap_on_re_us/mentally_ill_nursing_homes to finish reading this report.


The Nursing Home Experience for My Dad

This report brought to mind my father being in LakeBridge nursing home in Johnson City the last 11 months of his life. If only one could relive the times we make mistakes, wrong judgments, I definitely would. But we can't relive anything.

I recall going to see my father one day and found him with huge dark purple bruises in several places on his arms and face. As I surveyed him, I thought he'd had a terrible fall. I immediately went to the desk and questioned the nurse there. She seemed hesitant to respond to my questions and finally told me that Mr. Mustard, his roommate had beaten him during the night for trying to get into (wrong) Mr. Mustard's bed. The staff found my father curled up under his own bed sometime during the night. I do not know to this day the truth of the matter, only that my father was severely bruised. Why were we not called about this immediately?

Later I was told by a close friend, who also was a friend of Mr. Mustard's wife that he had tried to choke his wife to death while she dozed in a chair. Fortunately Mrs. Mustard awakened in time to fight him off her. Did not the nursing home know of his actions before being admitted to their care; that he was violent? Maybe; maybe not.

Dad was a very frail tiny man compared to Mr. Mustard. He only weighed about 90 pounds and moved very slowly in a confused and weakened condition as is usually the case with the elderly ill and so the reason he mistakenly tried to get into the wrong bed. We insisted this man be moved out of my father's room but instead, my father was moved from a room he had become familiar with over the many months in it.

From that day he went downhill very fast. Some weeks later,we insisted he be taken to the hospital after finding him unresponsive on the bed with his lips, hands and feet vibrant purple and his face very pale. The nurse didn't show much concern and I was shocked and livid with her attitude. My brother immediately came and arranged for an ambulance.

The next day, the case doctor informed us that our father was completely malnourished and dehydrated and that he was dying. He said dad would live about three weeks. This was information that was very hard to digest. He lived a total of thirty six days after the doctor's diagnosis.

As insurance only covered so many days in the hospital, we were forced to replace him back in the same nursing home to die, where he was put in a room with a 19 yr old boy from Philadelphia, who had been shot during a gang fight. I believe he was paralyzed from this gunshot. Nevertheless, this did not stop him from having his television very loud, playing his CDs overly loud and talking very much with his many visitors and on the telephone.

Requesting that my father be moved to another room to die in peace and quiet, when they refused my request that they ask the boy to tone down his noise, they refused this also. So my father lay dying amid all this horrible noise, which could be heard a distance down the hall when I walked down it.

Finally, once when walking in and seeing vomit and undigested food filling an oxygen mask on my dad's face and no staff anywhere to be found, my brother made immediate arrangements to take him to his home. Dad only lived three days after all the horrible experiences of being in a nursing home.

There were many which I have not spoken of. On two different occasions with the same male nurse, my dad was hit very hard on the back and again slammed down into his wheelchair. We filed a complaint against this man. It was determined by the state of Tennessee that nurse R. Carter could never work in Tennessee again. Less than 4 months passed and we found he was working at Four Oaks, another nursing home just a short distance from Lakebridge. How did this occur?

I saw for myself what goes on in nursing homes and made the decision that never, again would any of this family be put in one to suffer further; for this is exactly what happens often. But we do not know what will happen in the future. It may be the only solution for one of us as we get older. I sincerely hope not.

Much of what goes on in these nursing homes is kept hidden from families. I literally dreaded walking into LakeBridge for all the ineptness I saw happening. It was a nightmare that took several years for me to recover from. A sick or elderly person deserves to be treated with kindness, gentleness and security in their last days but it appears to be just the opposite in many cases.

A Forgotten Humanitarian Disaster ***

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22267.htm

A Forgotten Humanitarian Disaster
By Lieven De Cauter
March 20, 2009 "BRussells Tribunal " --- The sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is a sad occasion for the balance sheet: during six years of occupation 1.2 million citizens were killed, 2,000 doctors killed, and 5,500 academics and intellectuals assassinated or imprisoned. There are 4.7 million refugees: 2.7 million inside the country and two million have fled to neighbouring countries, among which are 20,000 medical doctors. According to the Red Cross, Iraq is now a country of widows and orphans: two million widows as a consequence of war, embargo, war again and occupation, and five million orphans, many of whom are homeless (estimated at 500,000). Almost a third of Iraq’s children suffer from malnutrition. Some 70 per cent of Iraqi girls no longer go to school. Medical services, not so long ago the best in the region, have totally collapsed: 75 per cent of medical staff have left their jobs, half of them have fled the country, and after six years of “reconstruction” health services in Iraq still do not meet minimum standards.
Because of the use of depleted uranium in ammunition by the occupation, .....article continued in the link posted - very informative.

Was the Bailout Itself a Scam? ***

By Paul Craig Roberts March 19, 2009 "Information Clearing House"

Professor Michael Hudson (CounterPunch, March 18) is correct that the orchestrated outrage over the $165 million AIG bonuses is a diversion from the thousand times greater theft from taxpayers of the approximately $200 billion “bailout” of AIG. Nevertheless, it is a diversion that serves an important purpose. It has taught an inattentive American public that the elites run the government in their own private interests.

Americans are angry that AIG executives are paying themselves millions of dollars in bonuses after having cost the taxpayers an exorbitant sum. Senator Charles Grassley put a proper face on the anger when he suggested that the AIG executives “follow the Japanese example and resign or go commit suicide.”

Yet, Obama’s White House economist, Larry Summers, on whose watch as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration financial deregulation got out of control, invoked the “sanctity of contracts” in defense of the AIG bonuses.

But the Obama administration does not regard other contracts as sacred. Specifically: labor unions had to agree to give-backs in order for the auto companies to obtain federal help; CNN reports that “Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday [March 10] that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance” [ http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/10/veterans.health.insurance/index.html ]; the Washington Post reports that the Obama team has set its sights on downsizing Social Security and Medicare.

According to the Post, Obama said that “it is impossible to separate the country’s financial ills from the long-term need to rein in health-care costs, stabilize Social Security and prevent the Medicare program from bankrupting the government.” [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011504114.html ]

After Washington’s trillion dollar bank bailouts and trillion dollar gratuitous wars for the sake of the military industry’s profits and Israeli territorial expansion, there is no money for Social Security and Medicare.

The US government breaks its contracts with US citizens on a daily basis, but AIG’s bonus contracts are sacrosanct. The Social Security contract was broken when the government decided to tax 85% of the benefits. It was broken again when the Clinton administration rigged the inflation measure in order to beat retirees out of their cost-of-living adjustments. To have any real Medicare coverage, a person has to give up part of his Social Security check to pay Medicare Part B premium and then take out a private supplemental policy. The true cost of Medicare to beneficiaries is about $6,000 annually in premiums, plus deductibles and the Medicare tax if the person is still earning.

Treasury Secretary Geithner, the fox in charge of the hen house, has resolved the problem for us. He is going to withhold $165 million (the amount of the AIG bonuses) from the next taxpayer payment to AIG of $30,000 million. If someone handed you $30,000 dollars, would you mind if they held back $165?

PR flaks have rechristened the bonus payments “retention payments” necessary if AIG is to retain crucial employees. This lie was shot down by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who informed the House Committee on Financial Services that the payments went to members of AIG’s Financial Products subsidiary, “the unit of AIG that was principally responsible for the firm’s meltdown.” As for retention, Cuomo pointed out that ”numerous individuals who received large ‘retention’ bonuses are no longer at the firm” [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/17/cuomo-reveals-details-of_n_175865.html ].

Eliot Spitzer, the former New York Governor who was set-up in a sex scandal to prevent him investigating Wall Street’s financial gangsterism, pointed out on March 17 that the real scandal is the billions of taxpayer dollars paid to the counter-parties of AIG’s financial deals. These payments, Spitzer writes, [ http://www.slate.com/id/2213942/ ] are “a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.”

Goldman Sachs, for example, had already received a taxpayer cash infusion of $25 billion and was sitting on more than $100 billion in cash when the Wall Street firm received another $13 billion via the AIG bailout.

Moreover, in my opinion, most of the billions of dollars in AIG counter-party payments were unnecessary. They represent gravy paid to firms that had made risk-free bets, the non-payment of which constituted no threat to financial solvency.

Spitzer identifies a conflict of interest that could possibly be criminal self-dealing. According to reports, the AIG bailout decision involved Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, formerly of Goldman Sachs, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner, former New York Federal Reserve president and currently Secretary of the Treasury. No doubt the incestuous relationships are the reason the original bailout deal had no oversight or transparency.

The Bush/Obama bailouts require serious investigation. Were these bailouts necessary, or were they a scam, like “weapons of mass destruction,” used to advance a private agenda behind a wall of fear? Recently I heard Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren, a member of a congressional bailout oversight panel, say on NPR that the US has far too many banks. Out of the financial crisis, she said, should come consolidation with the financial sector consisting of a few mega-banks. Was the whole point of the bailout to supply taxpayer money for a program of financial concentration?

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap." ***

An Excerpt from The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale

George Bernard Shaw said, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, they make them." Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry - his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing... he becomes nothing.

How does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well, I'll tell you how it works, as far as we know. To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.

Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant.

Now, let's say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds-one corn, the other nightshade. He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land...and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

As it's written in the Bible, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Remember the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants - one corn, one poison.

The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn't care what we plant...success...or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal...or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But what we plant it must return to us.

You see, the human mind is the last great unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.

Albert Einstein's View of War ***

"War seems to me to be a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press": Albert Einstein

It's Possible, Isn't It?***

"It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers"

Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs

Be Positive - quote ***

"Life's not about waiting for the storms to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain."~Vivian Greene

Book of A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey - Highly Recommended ***

"My Stroke of Insight" by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

ISBN 978-0-670-02074-4 52495

A brain scientist's personal journey

Excerpt: "I now existed in a world between worlds. I could no longer relate to people outside of me and yet my life had not been extinguished. I was not only an oddity to those around me, but on the inside, I was an oddity to myself."

In the book, Jill details what aspects of control that the left brain and the right brain have for a person. Jill also tells where she lived inside of herself while injured with this stroke, how it affected her in the many aspects of daily life. She gives hope that recovery is well possible and that one can resume a fulfilling life afterward.

Known as The Singing Scientist Jill works with NAMI; more information is found at her website: http://www.drjilltaylor.com/

This is a book I am about finished with. I thought this morning you might like to read it. Ms. Taylor, brain scientist with the highest credentials taught medical students, future doctors, all about brain anatomy, among her other endeavors.

Then one morning she has a stroke at the age of 37.

Its all about her experience and how with help she recovers to the point that she teaches again, carrying on with her life and interests. She gives the viewpoint from a stroke victim's perspective; giving good information for the caregiver.

At the end of the book are included two appendices:
Appendix A - Recommendations for Recovery, ten assessment questions;
Appendix B - Forty Things I Needed the Most. Invaluable!

All the while reading, I thought of an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Mac, who had a stroke when I was a teenager. She was very special and I loved her dearly, then of a sudden I could not communicate with her. She was very vocal with me, so she knew me, knew what she was trying to tell me; it was I who couldn't comprehend.

Also, my son-in-law's father suffered a stroke a few years ago. He was down here from Michigan, making a garden when I talked with him; he appeared in perfect health; that afternoon he drove back to Michigan with the intention of returning in a few days; he had a stroke a couple days later. Cared for in Michigan for a couple years, eventually brought back to Tennessee, he entered a nursing home but went downhill until he died in a few months. I do remember how he reacted with me when I was being patient with him - his eyes glowed. He so relaxed with hands-on care but unfortunately was near death at the time.

So as Ms. Taylor has impressed, patience is such an important virtue needed for success with a stroke victim and for that matter, anyone who is sick and suffering.

Jill's story from her viewpoint (as a brain specialist) could never have been written by anyone else.

This book with its information will be valuable one day should it ever be needed; I hope it never will be.

You can get it at your library probably or they can get it through the interlibrary loan system for you.

I had to take it in small doses what with technical terms for two chapters. But understanding them is not an issue in understanding the story; it is an extremely valuable writing.

Just Musing and Mind Browsing Toward Bedtime ***

This has been another huddling day. If I'd had a nice warm wood fire going it would have been more pleasant to huddle. Problem is I don't have a nice wood stove to make a wood fire in, so I have just huddled in front of the computer all day studying or under the bedcovers for a short nap. I don't think it is all that cold but sure is a huge change from the last few days such as the 74 degrees yesterday. Well, it can't last much longer for spring is almost here

I caught myself several times moving toward the thermostat to turn it up but each time realized I better not do so, since last month's bill was over $225.00 and this is low compared to many others' electric bills. Will someone please tell me how one individual uses that much electricity? You probably can't even explain why your bill is so high much less mine. Call the electric company though and they will explain it so easily with a big smile in their voice and probably on their face, knowing that they have another sucker on the line. I use very little electricity. I never have but one light on at a time, and never in the daylight, no TV, wash a couple loads of laundry weekly in cold water, rarely use the stove, take 6 minute showers. I quickly bathe rather than take my ease with warm water pouring down over my head as I would love to do. There is no better feeling than standing under nice warm water to take all the aches of the day away and down the drain. Well, those were days of luxury, so an Advil has to suffice.

The electric company rep told me once it was high in January and February because of the Christmas lights and electric heaters. Well, she sort of stalled when I let her know I never had tree lights nor electric heat. Told he I didn't even have a tree, (in case she tried to put the blame on one) and used a wood stove. She argued with me that I used it else my bill wouldn't be this high. Finally I found out a possible reason for ungodly winter bills. Its the water heater for it has to work overtime in the winter because the ground is so cold and so the water coming out of the ground is much colder. Well, that makes sense until I realize it keeps getting higher and higher and even more high each succeeding year. Surely the ground isn't keeping pace with electric bills by getting colder as time goes past. If it was, that means the air temperature is also.

I know we have some cold and even a few bitter cold winter days but they don't seem any colder or even as cold as winter days in years gone by seemed to be. If they are colder, then how to explain this greenhouse effect that's warming our earth up so much and melting the ice caps! Seems to me if ice is melting then the ground should be warming also.

I've done a lot of freezing in my lifetime; well, mostly shivering I guess as I am sure most everyone has. My feet and hands rarely turn clear with frostbite now. If you have read much of this blog, you know of the two years I wore a heavy overcoat during the summers. No wonder my muscles are so stiff. They've worked overtime for too long trying to keep this body from flying into pieces as the result of shivering.

Now maybe you can understand why I practically worship the sunshine. Of course, it won't be too long before I gripe and groan about it too. The heat is unbearable come midsummer, what with no air conditioner.

There doesn't have to be these outrageous fees to keep us humans comfortable all the time. There is free energy if only the "big wheels" would have flats and couldn't drive the system anymore. That's what keeps the pleasures or necessities of life so overcostly-and it 'do seem' its coming to the point of many flats!. Well, energy won't be exactly free but it will certainly be the cheap way to go. If you are curious, just do a search on this wonderful invention called the Internet; google free energy, zero point, scalar energy, Nicola Tesla for starters. Hard to understand sometimes but all truth. In fact, I have a tape sent to me that I put into the tape player of my truck when I drive to save gas. I have checked several times to find exactly how much gas mileage I got. I know I get exactly 10 mpg. This truck, a Chevy S10 eats your paycheck up quicker than a goat could. Well, I didn't have doubts (just mystified) how a tape could possibly do what I was told it could. But I tested it, first time on a trip over into NC to see Lynn. 110 miles roundtrip from the gas pump and back to it that night. I filled the truck up to the very top of the tank -would not hold another drop, then drove. Back home, I refilled it to the very top - would not hold another drop - to show how much gas I had used - cost me $5.34 to fill it back up. and I'm sure it was a bit over $1 gallon at that time. Truth.

I'll stop there as it is getting colder and colder sitting here typing and leave you with a funny poem I found in my saved documents written by Maya Angelou. Goodnight, sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite. Smile for you all.

A Phenomenal Woman

When I was in my younger days,
I weighed a few pounds less,
I needn't hold my tummy in
to wear a belted dress.

But now that I am older,
I've set my body free;
There's comfort of elastic
Where once my waist would be.

Inventor of those high-heeled shoes
My feet have not forgiven;
I have to wear a nine now,
But used to wear a seven.

And how about those pantyhose-
They're sized by weight, you see,
So how come when I put them on
The crotch is at my knee?

I need to wear these glasses
As the print's been getting smaller;
And it wasn't very long ago
I know that I was taller.

Though my hair has turned to grey
and my skin no longer fits,
On the inside, I'm the same old me,
It's the outside that's changed a bit.

Maya Angelou

Healing Laughter ***

Signs in foreign countries that will make you smile

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.

Have a Laugh Today ***

We owe a lot to Thomas Edison - if it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight. Milton Berle

I Did It! ***

Fell. Hard fall. Will continue soon, I hope.

Ponder These ***

Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.” --- St Augustine.

"To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death."--Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, 1963.

A Funny to Help Relax ***

My doctor is wonderful. Once, when I couldn't afford an operation, he touched up the x-rays.- Joey Bishop

This Gorgeous Day Has Ended ***

Here I have complete silence once again. Its fairly chilly outside I found when I took the Dog Children out for their last Go and now they lie unconscious beside the heater. The traffic is nil, unless I have gotten more deaf today from so much of it passing and that is easily possible. The dogs sure were vocal the whole day long; that is, between huge feasts and napping rests. Looking out several times I could see nothing possibly interesting to bark at, just the creek flowing by. Cars went by on Creekbank Road occasionally, which they silently watched.

This highway has been busy, busy, busy the livelong day. If I heard one motorcycle, I heard a thousand and one with a million vehicles interspersing. People in Stoney Creek are partial to trucks, it seems. I dare say there are three trucks to each car that passes by. Motorcycle clubs must be profuse around east Tennessee. The noise they make is horrible but one might as well adjust to the sounds of them any given weekend that the weather is nice. So it was today. It got up to 70 and will be even warmer tomorrow. I'd give anything if I lived up in a nice quiet hollow but....

I had so many things planned to accomplish and did nothing. Exhaustion from yesterday walking the dogs several times had me to the point I could barely move about. The idea walking them would help my stamina just blew up in smoke. Any minute my neck threatened to screech loudly from pain. So I moved about very cautiously. Every day I think about a chiropractic adjustment, but knowing they last about as long as it takes me to drive home and get inside. Something was causing the feet much pain. Gout maybe? Must get back on the Montmorancy Cherry capsules. They work wonders for gout.

The jonquils didn't burst into bloom today as I thought would happen. Maybe by morning. The sky is clear so I expect no rain Sunday. We'll see. There were a few chemtrails X-ing the sky earlier but I just now stepped out and they have disappeared. And the moon is heading toward full shortly. Can you believe a week of March is now gone. Two more and spring will be here officially. I only notice how time flies during the warmer months. Its almost unbelievable the way nice days rush past us; at least for me they seem to. I think its just the fact that the older I get, the faster the countdown goes.

Last night I waited for hours for Tommy to show up with his dogs. He requested the use of the kennel for them. But he never showed. When he does though, I expect Frances will quickly put her home on the market at a low price just to escape the noise pollution that will come from her next door neighbor (Me), for my two and his two will be mouthing at each other constantly. I surely hate to see an animal confined in any manner but what can one do since there is so much danger for them.

I meant to search today on the internet for the cost of an invisible fence. Last time I priced one locally, it was $3000 but that was 20 years ago. Anna tells me one is about $200 now. I hope. Otherwise, I haven't come up with a solution of safety for them yet. Maybe I made a big mistake getting these four legged children but with the many problems already occurring, they still are a pleasure underfoot. A clatter from the kitchen has them rushing to my side, then intense stares and totally motionless except for the tail. I wonder where they are putting all this food!

Be sure you start your Sunday with the clock set back an hour. Ha, I have one hanging so high on the wall I can never climb to reset it, so it is in sync with the other clocks part of the year anyway. I'd break a leg or neck climbing a ladder these days.

As The Children Rest, I Reminisce ***

This day is winding down and all is calm, quiet and totally peaceful for the time being. Soon noisy chaos will begin for more 'children' are coming. My new four legged children, Choco and Dapple aka Hope have settled in on their thick pad laid against the picture heater at the end of the desk. As long as I don't move, they don't either. I'm really surprised how quickly they have taken to their new home, happy and settled down within the last 12 hours. They finally started romping with each other today. I was surprised to see this but there was a reason for the playing. Anna (she's my eldest daughter) had arrived a few moments before. Dapple Hope (This is the name I've just this instant settled on) grabbed my neck pillow and went wild with it. Taking it from her, I then tied a knot in an old sock and away she went with Choco in hot pursuit of it.

Anna had arrived with a bag of books and the dogs became so excited, joyous in fact, greeting her like a long lost friend. Choco immediately saw hers as a perfect lap to leap upon then began showering her with kisses. Heck, I'm jealous. She is a full blown animal lover and they knew this instantly. How so, I wonder? They acted just like children who are excited and start showing off when new company visits.

After awhile I corralled them so we could be outside to dig a bit. Anna now has another chore to add to her daily thousands, as I gave her a lot of jonquils. Thaddeus will be with them the weekend so he can help plant. If Thatcher comes also though, there will be no bulb planting. Terry suffers with a broken foot; had a bad fall at work and two more when on the way to the hospital a few days later. A couple of weeks ago with both of them, Anna never had one moment for anything else. But the little one was fretful then.

I don't know where she might plant them for no one has as many beautiful plants and flowers as she does. Their yard is a picture. The weeping cherry trees, the lilac bushes, the butterfly bushes and all the plantings around the fish pond - gorgeous. I wait in anticipation to sit out back near the fish pond. There is plenty space to put jonquils but they will be in danger of the mower or weed-eater soon. Continuously cutting them down finally wipes them away. I was speaking to her of all the tulip bulbs she gave me during the highway construction back in 2000 and how I left them to dry too long and they shriveled within their skins. This was regrettable.

Several years ago, I dug over 500 bulbs to take with me when I moved from one home. Renting for some time and moving several times the bulbs never got planted. Forgotten among all the packing boxes. Dumb me! I didn't have sense enough to know that bulbs dry and disappear after some time, so I lost them all. A once former owner of that particular home had belonged to a garden club for many years and you can just imagine the many varieties of flowers and plants we inherited on buying that property. I still miss that place so much after thirty years. There never was or has been a home I liked as much. It was also haunted; really it was. That is a story that stands alone on its own! Update: story over on other blog, "Hey, Let Me Tell You a Story"
I will have jonquils blooming tomorrow. I saw a few this afternoon ready to burst open and my Autumn Maple is in full bud, so any day now its leaves will unfurl. The willows have turned green this week and I watched the grass getting greener through the day while I sat here near the window one day this week. And my 20 varieties of Day Lilies are growing fast.

Walking the dogs over the whole place today, I saw the profusion of them and need to get some of them separated and potted and ready for Farmers' Market which will soon open. Amazing, isn't it, how fast nature changes - like overnight! It all depends where each of you are located but if spring hasn't begun at your place, it definitely can't be too long coming. The patch of jonquils I saw on the Edifice Rex blog were beautiful. I bet out of the eye of her camera it is total flowering profusion today for she lives much farther south than I.

I wish to be a powerful bird and fly the world, glorying in all the beauty we have upon our tiny blue planet. How confining at times to be just human, without wings to soar over it all.

Outrageous Sentences Actually Typed By Medical Secretaries! ***

These are sentences actually typed by National Health Service's (the publicly funded healthcare system of the United Kingdom) medical secretaries:1. The patient has no previous history of suicides.

2. Patient has left her white blood cells at another hospital.

3. Patient’s medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain
in the past three days.

4. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.

5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.

Irish Blessing ***

God keep you safe,
God keep you warm
God keep you and yours from all harm.
May He bless your kith and kin,the hearth,
The house and all within.

Healing Laughter ***

Signs in foreign countries that will make you smile

In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastary: You are welcome to visit the cemetary where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday


The Children's Bible in a Nutshell

Judas Asparagus

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas.

The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.

Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did. Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve.

Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden.....Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham.

Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast.

Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston.

Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti.

Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff.

Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

Albert Einstein ***

"Force always attracts men of low morality. " -- Albert Einstein - (1879-1955) Physicist and Professor, Nobel Prize 1921

This tells much about the morality of our world.
How many do we know who use force?

Sissy T Quote

Force is the way of the coward. Cowards have no morality nor self-respect.

A Laugh for Your Day *

Farewell Luncheon
The staff at the office where my wife works was hosting a farewell luncheon for a retiring colleague. As the group prepared to go to the restaurant, they found that they couldn't fit the giant balloon they had purchased for the guest of honor into the car.Determined to bring it along, they simply held the balloon out the window as they drove to the luncheon location.However they weren't prepared for the glares and dirty looks they were getting from pedestrians and adjoining cars at every intersection.As the long line of traffic in front of their vehicle began to turn, they discovered that their car was right behind a long funeral procession.There was really nothing they could do but hold on to the balloon with its large farewell message:"GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN"

Something to Do On a Rainy Day ***

Keep the kiddies occupied! That's the trick to your sanity.

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