Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year 2011!


HIGHLIGHTS OF 2010
  • Relocating to Tampa Bay
  • Functional training with Dr. Michael Norwood
  • FAMI workshop at Mt Sinai with Dana and Jean
  • International Living Conference - Panama
  • Hula Hooping
  • PiYo Gold certification
  • Three Principles Retreat with Pransky and Associates
POSSIBILITIES FOR 2011
  • Exploring expat living in South American and Europe
  • Barre certification
  • 30 year high school reunion
  • 2nd language
  • Jessica relocating to Tampa Bay
READING IN 2010
  • The Survivor's Code - Sherwood
  • America Alone - Steyn
  • Emperor Series - Iggulden
  • Genghis Series - Iggulden
  • Garden Spells - Addison Allen
  • In Defense Of Food - Pollan
  • One Second After- Forstchen
  • Pursuit Of Honor -Flynn
  • What The Night Knows - Koontz
  • The Help - Stockett
  • International Living Magazine
WATCHING IN 2010
  • Expendables
  • TheTudors -Netflix
  • Flyboys
  • My Life In Ruins
  • #1 Ladies Detective Agency - Netflix
  • Doc Martin - Netflix
  • Daniel Deronda - Netflix
  • Bluebloods
  • V
  • Flash Forward
  • Letters To Juliet
  • Crazy Heart
  • Time Traveler's Wife
  • Secretariat
  • The Secret Of Oz -Youtube
LISTENING IN 2010

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Ruling Class

Angelo M Codevilla wrote an article for conservative publication aimed at explaining why those in power of both political parties will not take the American people's objections to buying toxic assets, bailouts, stimulus bills, government expansion disguised as "health care reform", signing bills without reading them and bipartisan backroom deals seriously. Our politicians think, look, and act as a class. They began to be called the Ruling Class. The article was expanded to include the differences of the Ruling Class and the Country Class.

Excerpts from The Ruling Class:

"We believe in merit. We rise or fall based on merit. This is not true for the Ruling Class. In fact, for them, merit is looked down upon."

"They have certain strange beliefs. One of these is that the United States is the problem in the world. Another is that those of us not in the Ruling Class haven't got the smarts to know what's best for ourselves."

"These people are threatened by the private sector. They couldn't compete with the average successful person in the private sector."

"The Ruling Class has a fear. They know that they are a minority, and they know that their time is coming."

"Political clashes over individual issues are so bitter because each represents the attempt of the Ruling Class to lock down the controls already established on its subordinates, and what the subordinates feel may be their last chance of escape."

"best left to professionals...more and more of what ordinary people think of as private decisions that concern medical care, the use of energy and water, even the consumption of food, should occur within guidelines firmly set by experts like themselves."

"It confuses its own opinions with 'science'. Americans pray to the God who created us in His own image, our Ruling Class prays to themselves as saviors of the planet and shapers of mankind in their own image."

"The Ruling Class accepts no standard it cannot control."


"American people do not want partisan government. They want self-governance."

"...they realized that America's rulers had become a self-contained, self-referential class."

"Differences between the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas are of degree, not kind."



"The Republican Party did not disparage the Ruling Class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it."

"This means that Democratic politicians are the Ruling Class' prime legitimate representatives."

"Ruling Class is as hostile as it is incompetent has solidified."

"...while most Americans pray to the God 'who hath created and doth sustain us', our Ruling Class prays to itself as saviors of the planet and improvers of humanity."

"Today's Ruling Class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits."


"America's Ruling Class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats."

"...privileged people demographically is that, whether in government power directly or as officers in companies, their careers and fortunes depend on government. They vote Democrat more consistently..."

"...Ruling Class. Like a fraternity, this class requires, above all, comity-being in with the right people, giving the required signs that one is on the right side, and joining in despising the Outs."

"For our Ruling Class, identity always trumps truth."

"The top schools select for compatibility, not excellence."

"These schools have been national leaders in grade inflation. At Stanford, where the most common grade is an A..."

"...our Ruling Class recruits and renews itself not through meritocracy but rather by taking into itself people whose most prominent feature is their commitment to fit in."

"...our Ruling Class stunt itself through negative selection. Each succeeding generation is less competent than its predecessor."

"Its first tenet is that its members are the best and brightest, while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly restrained. How did this replace the Founding Fathers' paradigm that "all men are created equal."

"...modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody hs to know about them is whom they empower. This defines 'crony capitalism."

"Our Ruling Class' economics aim not at making us wealthier, but at making us more dependent."

"The US labor movement now consists almost exclusively of government employees, employees of companies doing government contracts, or companies that are subsidized by government...they trade political contributions and votes for guaranteed contracts."

"Disregard for the text of laws, for the dictionary definitions of words and the intentions of those who wrote them, in favor of the decider's discretion has permeated out Ruling Class from the Supreme Court to the lowest local agency."

"...the power to decide when words mean what they say and when they do not is the power to do so whenever one wants, for whatever purpose."

"If government can decide that the constitution contains things that it does not, and allows things that it forbids, then adieu to the rule of law."

"...'families', meaning mostly households based on something other than marriage...husbands are held financially responsible for the children they father, while out-of-wedlock fathers are not...forces those couples who raise their own children to subsidize childcare for those who do not."



"Since unmarried mothers often are or expect to be clients of government services, it is not surprising that they are among the Democratic Party's most faithful voters."

"...school nurses who could not administer an aspirin to a child without the parent's consent, the people who run America's schools nowadays administer pregnancy test and ship girls off to abortion clinics without the parent's knowledge."

"Consensus among the right people is the only standard of truth."

"...shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards as inept and haughty."

"The Country Class is not anti-government, just nongovernmental...as the result of countless private choices rather than as the consequence of someone else's master plan."

"The Country Class knows the government is there to serve the strong: the Ruling Class' members and supporters."

"The former wants the company to grow by producing a better product at a lower cost. The latter wants it to grow by moving it as close to the feeding trough as possible."

"Members of the Country Class who want to rise in their professions through competence alone try at once to avoid the Ruling Class' rituals while guarding against infringing its prejudices."

"Persons who were brought up to believe themselves worthy as anyone, who manage their own lives to their own satisfaction, naturally resent politicians of both parties who say that the issues of modern life are too complex for anyone but themselves."

"Since when and by what right does intelligence trump human equality? Moreover, if the politicians are so smart, why have they made life worse?"

"Ruling Class and its underclass clients..."

"One out of seven sets of parents has already abandoned the public schools, and many more wish they could."



"Millions of parents recognize the Ruling Class' idea of education is different from theirs."

"Utah gets 2.1 SAT points per dollar, while the District of Columbia, which spends three times as much as Utah, gets only .07."

"The result is that SAT scores for home-schoolers hover around the eightieth percentile. How did those dumb, violent racists achieve results like that?"

"...attack the premise of the laws than the bureaucracy."

"Seldom does a Democratic official or member of the Ruling Class speak on public affairs without reiterating the litany of his class' claim to authority, contrasting it with opponents who are either uninformed, stupid, racist, shills for business, violent, fundamentalist, or all of the above."

"...re-training rulers grown accustomed to treating their own desires as laws."

"Reducing agencies' budgets is unserious. If a job should be done and the agency is doing it, why cut? But if it is not, why not abolish it?"

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Ideal Protein


My fellow Pilates Teacher, Karen Mirlinbrink at Dunedin Pilates Studio, just announced that she will be facilitating a new weight loss program, Ideal Protein. I am intrigued by the attention paid to building muscle, losing fat and balancing insulin.



I am considering starting the program in January since I have hit a plateau in my fat loss despite my nutrition and fitness regimen. I am also recommending a few special to me to try it with me who are struggling with insulin insensitivity and metabolic issues. My biggest barrier to trying the program is the processed food.

For more info, follow the links to Ideal Protein and Dunedin Pilates Studio.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Jackie's How To Get Thin Forever


"Being fat is a problem, staying fat is a disaster."

"There's nothing loving, acceptable, or positive about eating your way to unattractiveness, fatigue, cancer, depression, and other terrible problems."

"...recognize that weight gain is a result of out-of-whack hormones, excess sugar, and poorly functioning organs."

"You've got to give up the trans fats, cheap sugar, excess sodium, and unpronounceable additives dumped into junk food)."

"We are a nation of sick, unhealthy people wasting away and mutating into sad, fat, and lethargic people, just getting fatter and sadder by the second. We are an out-of-control nation with out-of-control waistlines."

"You're appearance, health and fitness are as important as anything else."

"We make a choice every day to get either strong or weak. Let this be your day to get strong."

"Fat control has largely to do with hormones."

"When blood sugar is low, your body pumps out more human growth hormone. The best way to capitalize on this situation is to keep your carbohydrate intake low in the evening."

"Eliminate sugar and highly processed foods. Look for organic meat and dairy products that are certified free of hormones. Boost your intake of whole grains, plant-based proteins, good fats, colorful fruits and vegetables, green tea, and good sweeteners such as Truvia, which is a stevia-based sweetener."

"Sugar is the devil."

"Choose foods with 5 grams or less of sugar."

"If you want to lose weight, you could enjoy a healthy, low-calorie meal like a grilled chicken salad with low-cal dressing. Or you could chow down on high fructose corn syrup, yogurt flavored coating, partially defatted peanut flour, honey corn syrup and the other ingredients in some of the popular nutrition bars out there."

"The third reason you're getting fat is your organs: an overworked liver, a sluggish thyroid and exhausted adrenals."

"Always try to combine carbs with protein in a meal to slow the digestion of the carbohydrate food."

"Processed foods...chemical cuisine."

"Metal tubings to dispense diet soda eroded so quickly that they had to be replaced monthly. What do you think that same sweetener is doing to your insides?"

"Your behavior is consistent with your identity."

"The last six letters in attraction are action. Successful people are intensely action-oriented. They move in the direction of their desires."

Excerpts from...










Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Pasta Al Forno - David Rocco

The launch of The Cooking Channel renewed my interest in food tv. One of my favorite shows is hosted by David Rocco. The "Boot Camp" episode featured a recipe for Pasta Al Forno. It was so "delizioso".




A pound of pasta is unthinkable us...I reduced the pasta to 1/3 of a 1 lb box (I had penne in the pantry so that's what I used)... a medium eggplant and 2 med-large zucchini. It was surprisingly flavorful with the smoked cheese, olives and sundried tomatoes. I skipped the layering...added the smoke cheese to the sauce and used the mozzerella on top.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Pumpkin Gingerbread

I came across the prettiest sugar pumpkin at our local produce stand. I put it in my eco-friendly shopping bag confident of finding a way to utilize it.

To make fresh pumpkin puree:

1. Wash, split in half vertically and scoop out the center.
2. Place in a roasting pan, cut side down, and pour in enough water to cover the edges of the pumpkin 1/4 inch.
3. Roast until you can easily pierce the flesh and skin with a fork.
4. Scoop out pulp and puree.

Pumpkin Gingerbread

Combine 2.5 tsp cinnamon and ginger, 3/4tsp nutmeg, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tea salt.

In a separate bowl, add 2 eggs and 1 egg white, 1/2 c almond or other oil and 1/2 c raw honey or molasses. If you want a very sweet cake, add 1/3 c brown sugar. If you are watching your sugar intake, omit it, as I did. To this mixture, stir in 1 cup fresh or canned pumpkin puree.

Optional: 1/2 c chopped walnuts or other nut and 1/4 c crystallized ginger, minced. Add to wet ingredients then fold in dry ingredients.


Pour into 9x9 pan that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.

Bake at 350 F for 35-40 min, looking for the gingerbread to pull away from the sides of the pan and an inserted toothpick in the center comes out clean. Serve warm or cool on a rack.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Real Food Has Curves

Excerpts:


"It's processed, packaged, ridiculously sweet, unbelievably salty, mass-produced in such plummeting quality that it'shad to be shellacked with fat and artificial junk just to make it palatable-not to mention pumped with preservatives and emulsifies to keep it on the shelf well into the next Ice Age..."

"Elves don't make cookies. Uncle Ben doesn't convert rice. And Mrs. Baird doesn't bake bread."

"The road to Hell is paved with fake food."

"It's not that we love food to much. It's that we love food to little."

"Resolution aren't plans."

"You don't really want boxes, mixes or frozen entrees. You want ripe, gorgeous tomatoes; chicken with a crisp, brown skin; and a fruit crisp with a fulfilling allure..."

"A key part of finding real food: preparing it."

"...pantries of ready-to-eat meals we call restaurants."

"If a peach doesn't smell like anything, it won't taste like anything."

"Step away from all that is processed, packaged, low nutrition and poor quality. You just started down the road to enjoying food more, weighing less and being more content with your life."

"Taste: a seriously underrated sense."

"Taste's only rival may well be sexual arousal."

"When we talk about the texture of food, by and large we're talking about how quickly it becomes bolus..most of what we eat is soft. It becomes a bolus very quickly."

"People who chew more eat less. Chewing more means more time at the table. Chewing is the first step to good digestive health."

"Why are they called cheese food and not cheese?"

"Ideally, look for a small restaurant where someone is not just cooking but actually creating dishes in the kitchen. You want a place without corporate recipe development."

"What can I order that has lots of texture?"

"Do you really want to eat something that won't spoil until after your birthday next year- or even the year after that?"

"Since we don't eat real food anymore, we have had to add essential ingredients where they don't naturally occur to make up for the deficit. These additives are replacements for natural fats and proteins, all of which eventually go bad or rancid."

"Shelf life has become more important than taste or nutrition."

"BHT (organic compounds that preserve fats) is also used in jet fuel, exfoliating creams and embalming fluids."

"Sodium Benzoate (a salt that slows growth of mold and bacteria in salad dressings and soda) is also the stuff that makes fireworks whistle."

"Salt water injected into the meat as well as artificial flavorings...what would the chicken taste like if they didn't add flavorings?"

"Many canned broths are stocked with MSG...beef flavor."

"No one has tested all those additives and preservatives for long term use. They were given a human trial of forty days, three months... no one knows what those chemicals do in combination with each other."

"one draw back to real food is price."

"Fat free is not real food."

"When people say they don't have the time to make real food, they really mean they don't want to spend the effort."

"The amount of effort we put into making real food will pay off in better health, better weight maintenance, and better all-around contentment."

"People of normal weight spend more time shopping for and cooking food than people who are overweight."

"Cooking itself can be enjoyable, a way to experience life fully and to be creative."

"If our goal is to lose weight, we need to stop boiling dinner in a bag, or going on the fat flush purge, or doing any of the other unspeakable things all those diets require."

"In 2010, it's projected that the average American will spend EIGHT MINUTES a day preparing food at home - not per meal, but for all three meals, snacks included."

"Only 58% of our meals use at least one raw ingredient. Milk on cereal counts. Which means 42% of foods cooked at home did not include even one raw ingredient."

"If you're serious about taking control of what you eat, you start to find it really hard to go out."

"Imagine yourself as a person who slows down, who takes time with what you eat."

"Calories may be equal in science but they're not in our bellies. Protein and fiber leave our stomachs slowly."

"We don't just need to slow down; we must also choose foods that will stick with us for longer periods of time...protein and fiber."

"Foods are more than a vehicle for salt, fat and added flavors."

"Ever make cookies at home? Ever had them sit around for a month? If they don't mold, they'll probably rocks. But not those packaged ones"

"Why do people butter their bread? Or dip it in olive oil? Because it tastes good. You'll never see anyone corn-oiling their bread."

"soothing fears...calm down...that's not the point of food, that's the point of a bath, walk or favorite movies while snuggled down in the den."

"Food must not anesthetize, it has to stimulate."

"No part of a turkey, chicken, or pig looks like a football."

"Always push for the better alternative, buying the best you can afford."

"Why is it so difficult to add more vegetables? Because most require preparation."

Mark Scarbrough also writes the blog Real Food Has Curves.

Anatomy Of An Epidemic: (Mental Illness)

A few things recently brought to my attention about the current mental health crisis in America:



  • 40 years ago, depressive episodes ran their course and there was virtually complete recovery. Changes in the field of diagnosing and treating depression has led to a 600% increase of people on Social Security mental health disability.
  • In most cases, studies show drugs work no better than a placebo and are causing even more serious mental disorders than the one subjects are originally treated for.
  • Antidepressant drug users tend to spiral downward into a chronic course of long-term depression.
  • 1985: $600 M p/yr, Today: $40B p/yr, dollars spent on mental wellness pharma, with disability rates and bipolar illness skyrocketing.
  • In the 70's, the APA saw an influx of therapists and the bad news that the stand by anti-anxiety drug was too addictive and harmful to use. In response, a new diagnostic manual was created, mood problems such as depression became medical disorders and the treatment of such was prohibited except by physicians and psychiatrists. The APA then partnered with pharma companies.
  • Exercise is just as effective as drug therapy and patients are less likely to see their depression return were the findings of a Duke University study.
  • Yoga is an alternative to depression and anxiety, low GABA level disorders...studies have found yoga increases brain GABA.
  • Sugar, additives, preservatives and food colorants cause behavioral changes. Dietary changes such as severely limiting sugar, especially fructose, and grains treat depression.
  • Krill Oil, a rich source of Omega-3 fats, is as effective as antidepressants. Krill oil has 50x the amount of Omega-3s than standard fish oil.
  • Vitamin D deficient people are 11x more prone to depression. Incidence of schizophrenia may be reduced by as much as 87% with vitamin D supplements.
  • Sodium deficiency's symptoms mimics those of major depression.
"Psychiatric drugs, it turns out, are fully capable of disabling - often permanently - body brain and spirit." - Dr Gary Kohls


Source: Dr. Joseph Mercola

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Fountain




"LA gets tourists from all over the world. I saw some people who looked like they were from Africa admiring the giant fountain out front. It got me thinking - how would you explain a giant fountain to someone from that part of the world.

Here in America, we have so much clean, drinkable water that sometimes we use the extra to decorate. And then what we do is take our spare change, which is the money we have left over after we have bought everything we could possibly want and we just throw it in the fountain. And make a wish for a better life.


If there are ducks in the fountain, we will take some of the bread we have left over, after we have eaten everything we could possibly eat."


- Adam Yenser, Right 2 Laugh, political satire on the Right Network.

Monday, September 13, 2010

The Help

Before we married, Doug and I flew to California so I could meet his family. And Sybil, the black Louisianan who helped raise him. She sat between us, took our hands and said, "Now what ya'll did to get each other ya'll keep doing to keep each other." Sybil loved Doug and Doug loved
Sybil.


Some months back, Jessica called to tell me about a book she was reading. It was about black women raising white children in the South and the complexities of these relationships. Jessica was thinking of Doug's and Sybil's bond, as well as his other nanny, Rose, as she read the story and wanted me to experience it.


I guess Sybil was more like Aibileen and I have met a few Minnys in my day. Rose was no certainly no stranger to the treatment that the "domestics" in the book endured by families before the Bells. Sybil was one of the family at the Bell household, at least that is how they saw it. She has passed so I can't ask her about how she saw it.

The book weaves the cruelties blacks lived with in a white ruled Southern world in the story beautifully. The book seems timely and strong feelings about my experiences about race come to the surface.


"You ain't nothing but a n___a lover." In 3rd grade, Ike Smith was my best friend. He was by far the most amusing...and the most motivated. After hearing about Ike for weeks, I got to introduce him to Daddy at school during Halloween. Later Dad asked me why I never mentioned Ike was black.

3 years later, my education about whites and blacks relations would begin. That's when the Duval County School Board and NAACP decided to integrate schools with bussing. Our school was locked up and barbed wired like a prison and my ignorance about racial tension was removed. A couple of years later my parents would buy a house in a more racially even school zone. There I learned blacks could hate just as cruelly as whites - with every pound of their fists onto my head because a white girl needed to be made an example. Later, the middle school would be closed due to threat of racial rioting by 8th graders and I refused to attend school there. We moved.

By high school, Frieda and Eva were among my best friends and my black teachers had great influence on me. We would deal with passive racism (Eva's dad wouldn't be home when a white child was in his house, My parents having to grow to accepting then loving Eva as any other) and the aggressive racism of neighbors, school mates and extended family. Poor Eva was even my bridesmaid when I married into a family with no love for black people!

Ramona once said I "collect black people". Karen has lamented about my being "color blind" because it blinds me to more of the racism that goes on. Kim and I didn't have to pretend about what's what while dealing with the white do-gooders at the preschool. As Aibileen hoped in the civil rights charged era novel, at least in my life, friendships with women of color have more to with what is inside rather than what is outside.

Minny had a word for the white upper class without a clue; fool. I hope to not be one. For as many blacks that have loved me, many never will. Because of history, their history, much like that told of those in "The Help." I am not black and will not know what it is like to be black any more than I can know what it is like to be a man. A story like this does deepen my understanding.

I have heard the statement above more than once. And not one time did it hurt.

"Why don't you just go ahead and call him n__ger." Incredulously, a white liberal acquaintance forwarded this rant to those she knew who were critical of President Obama. What a friggin fool.

I have lived almost 5 decades. I didn't know you were supposed to catagorize people by color as a child. I did not cave to pressures from either race as a teen. I have befriended, work with and for, raised money for, sponsored and educated people my whole life...some of them white and some of them black. I have advocated for blacks in my community. I have helped reverse racial prejudice in my family and am proud that my daughter sees people like I do.

And I have about as much patience for fools as Minny does. That friggin fool Kristen cries over the plight of the children of Haiti (while denouncing my politics as racist), yet she hasn't once got her Chomsky loving, liberal white ass in the car, drove over to local black church and donated her farm fresh goods or helped a black child with literacy or a job. That fool that married into the family that equates being a Southerner with bigotry must think Rodney King took his beating in Los Angeles located in Georgia and credits a cracker with nicknaming Latinos "beaners", his California being so pristine and all. That fool brother-in-law of mine didn't pass on his idiot hateful ways to his kids after all, thank God. Those white fools pulling the D lever in the voting booth can keep believing they are better to blacks than those racist-R pulling-Tea Partiers, all while never having attended the birth, wedding or funeral of a black they call friend (and the help will tell you, if you pay 'em, they ain't your friend).

Hearing the statement above makes my blood boil. Really, we are now using racial slurs to attack political opponents? I have a pretty good idea what racism is because I have lived with it all my life. I know blacks know what racism is. It's thinking black people have different diseases than you. It's beating a boy blind because he is black...and it is beating a girl senseless because she is white. It is arresting "integrationists" because they work for racial equality. It is hanging a man because he wants the same education, employment and life opportunities as others. If you've been letting the politicians, academics and journalists tell you what racism is and who the racists are, the "domestics" in The Help can clue you in.

Law, what I wouldn't give for Ms. Rose, Ms. Sybil, Ms. Aibileen and Ms. Minny to see a man of mixed race elected President...despite his sorry ass.