I Hate Spam

I hate spam. I hate spam. I hate spam. I hate spam.

I am sick and tired of spam senders sending me sexual stuff. I don't need that.

Stroke Identification

(Passed on from my sister)

Remember the 1st Three Letters of the word stroke....S.T.R.

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S *Ask the individual to SMILE.
T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today.)
R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS..

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke -------- Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out his tongue. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.

Today's Revealization

The key word is replace. I cannot uproot a weed and leave a gaping hole, for another weed will grow in its place. I must plant a flower there.

Same with sins. I cannot say, "Stop doing or thinking that sin"; I must do or think something good to replace it. Replace sin with goodness. Don't just stand there and try to think evil away. do things that occupy your time, attention, and heart with goodness. Good music, friends who influence you to do good, serving others...

Wonderful Timelines and Map for LDS (Mormon) History

Check these out:

LDS & World History: this one is produced by the Church itself.

PBS also created a very useful timeline, as well as this extremely informative map.

Wonderful resources! Enjoy.

In Defense of Mormonism

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Fair Wiki (like Wikipedia) is a wonderful site dedicated to clarifying and defending the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is not sponsored by the Church itself.

Check it out.



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"Africa" by Perpetuum Jazzile

Death to Cell Phones!

How many times have I been in a grocery store or in line somewhere, heard someone talking to me, and I begin to answer – only to discover that they are on a cell phone. How rude! How ridiculous!

I don’t have a cell phone, and I barely know how to use one. When I tell that to people they become incredulous, discombobulated. “What?! No cell phone? How is that possible?”

Apart from being extremely dangerous when used by motorists, cell phones seem to me to be one more inadvertent effect of technology separating us from our immediate life and surroundings.

There are times when I need to be alone, when I don’t want to be accessible. It is those uninterrupted times when I can be more productive, or introspective, or live in the moment and place where I physically am. Cell phones pull you away from such times, acting as an electronic leash.

While cell phones can of course be wonderful in times of an emergency, they are usually nothing more than a huge crutch. They take you away from the need to associate with those who are in your immediate vicinity; they also free you from the responsibility of planning or forethought; you can just call someone to get it for you.

In general, I vote against cell phones. They are a distraction, a leash, a crutch, a fracture in conversation and relationship building, a separation from our immediate life, another bill, and another thing to lug around. I suppose if you have to have one to make sure to use it judiciously.

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Thanks to my good buddy Jason for pointing out this article to me, which goes hand in hand with my cell-phone thoughts:

"More Better Faster!": How Our Spastic Digital Culture Scrambles Our Brains

Taken from http://www.alternet.org/media/140982/%22more_better_faster!%22%3A_how_our_spastic_digital_culture_scrambles_our_brains/?page=entire

By David Bollier, On the Commons. Posted June 30, 2009.

The digital communications apparatus is crowding out deeper relationships and more deliberative modes of thinking.

One of the more pernicious enclosures of the commons is the enclosure of time and consciousness. It's pernicious because it is so subtle and rarely discerned. When commercial values such as productivity and efficiency become so pervasive and internalized, they crowd out other ways of being. Our very sense of humanity -- full-bodied, spontaneous, spiritual -- leaches away.

All of this was brought home clearly in a provocative lecture that I attended yesterday evening. It was called "No Time to Think," by David M. Levy, a professor at the Information School at the University of Washington. Levy gave a chilling historical overview of how American society has become enslaved to an ethic of "more-better-faster" and is losing touch with the capacity for reflection and intuitive thinking. In an overweening commitment to constant doing and making, analyzing and thinking (which, let us note, are important human activities), we can too easily close off access to an entire realm of consciousness that is at least as important, our capacity for reflection.

Levy's research is focused on why the technological devices that are designed to connect us also seem to radically dis-connect us. As Levy puts it, "We now have the most remarkable tools for teaching and learning the world has ever known. How is it that we have less time to think than ever before?" Although our society supposedly prizes creative thought, it in fact gives little respect to the intuitive and the contemplative.

The "information society" has a certain frenetic mindlessness to it, one that takes Henry David Thoreau's famous line in Walden to a new level entirely: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate." Twitter may be all the rage, but surely there is something pathetic about the ascendance of Twittering as our unstructured, person-to-person social time dwindles away.

This trend has only accelerated, and become more internalized, as more and more digital technologies have become incorporated into our daily routines. Email, cell phones, text-messaging, voicemail, Facebook, instant-messaging, Twitter, and of course the World Wide Web – they all serve useful roles. But I also realize at times that the digital communications apparatus has transformed our consciousness in some unwholesome ways. It privileges thinking that is rapid, productive and short-term, and crowds out deeper, more deliberative modes of thinking and relationships.

According to Thomas Eriksen of the University of Oslo, author of Tyranny of the Moment, the electronic environment systematically favors "fast time" activities that require instant, urgent responses (email, cell phone calls, etc.) Such stimuli tend to crowd out "slow time activities" such as "reflection, play and long-term love relationships," said Levy.

Levy pointed out that this dynamic has an especially perverse effect in academia, which is supposed to be somewhat insulated from the larger society so that students and scholars can think more broadly and with longer range perspectives. But in fact, universities mirror the rest of society, and the dwindling time to think is as much a problem within the academy as anywhere else. As instrumental, short-term, applied goals take center-stage, our society has less access to the wisdom and complexity that deep, reflective thinking can provide. This is a major loss.

The ancients had a word for it: "leisure." In the original sense of the word, leisure was not a consumer-oriented activity like golfing or movie-going, or even "relaxation." It involved having time to ponder and reflect on the world. The words "school" and "scholar" have their etymological roots in the Greek and Latin words for these activities, Levy noted.

According to Josef Pieper, a German Catholic philosopher, "leisure is a form of stillness that is the necessary preparation for accepting reality; only the person who is still can hear, and whoever is not still cannot hear." Pieper, writing in the 1940s, worried about a world of "total work" that would make a "total claim upon the whole of human nature."

It's safe to say that that future has arrived. The very coinage of the term 24/7 and "real time" (usually as a virtue!) confirms the ubiquitous social reality of "total work." Fast-time activities absolutely crowd out slow-time alternatives. The now eclipses the timeless. And we are becoming diminished creatures in the process.

By coincidence, this week's issue of The New Yorker has a major article by Margaret Talbot on the use of "neuro-enhancing drugs" that are increasingly being taken to boost one's cognitive performance. There is apparently a large underground culture of people – students, business executives, poker players and others seeking a competitive mental edge – who take drugs like Adderall and Modafinil to stay awake, alert and mentally engaged, especially for tasks that require sustained attention. The whole idea is to prolong one's productivity and efficiency.

Taking drugs to prolong one's productive engagement becomes a new way to adapt one's very body and mind to modern demands for "efficiency." Why remain a normal human being when one can use chemicals to super-charge one's metabolism in order to meet the harsh imperatives of a college education, business negotiations, international travel and general multitasking? Defenders liken the neuro-enhancing drugs to drinking coffee. But that's a rationalization; no one really knows how safe these productivity boosters are over the long term.

The scary things is that we are slowly "papering over" the forms of human consciousness that we regard as gratuitous….yet which history has shown are essential to a meaningful life. We are sabotaging those inner capacities of consciousness that we need to be present to others and ourselves.

Yet this is no Brave New World imposed by a totalitarian state; we are "voluntarily" doing it to ourselves. While there is certainly a voluntary aspect to using neuro-enhancing drugs, in other respects our cultural norms of efficiency and busyness are encouraging this abuse. When your everyday life is saturated by email, cell phones, voicemail and texting, it's not a big leap to take a drug that will help you survive the "fast-time" norms of modern life.

In his lecture, David Levy called for an "information environmentalism" to help educate people about the myriad and aggressive forms of mental pollution afflicting our lives: advertising, telemarketing, junk mail, radio and TV, and various digital media. Perhaps we can begin to push back on the cognitive overload, he suggested, and recover some modicum of silence. That's the purpose of the "Do Not Call" list to prevent unsolicited telemarketing calls, for example.

We might also begin to design physical spaces with contemplative needs in mind (think of the Library of Congress' reading room, for example). Many businesses have discovered that they can make money by offering consumers the opportunity to "buy back" the quiet that has been taken from us. The Bose noise-canceling headphones are marketed in this fashion.

I liked how Levy put it: "We need the equivalent of old-growth forests and marshlands in our mental lives."

For more about David Levy's work on the topic of information overload and the need to recover contemplative mind, it's worth chasing down a special issue of the journal Ethics and Information Technology that Levy guest-edited in December 2007 (vol. 9, no. 4). Entitled "Information, Silence and Sanctuary," the issue contains six thoughtful essays on a topic that deserves far more awareness. Unfortunately, the journal is locked behind a paywall, so you may have to use university access to read it. Another person worth consulting is Ivan Illich, who wrote about silence as a commons.

Given the powerful economic forces that have a self-interest in colonizing our consciousness (marketers routinely talk about seizing "mindshare"), devising effective ways to protect our contemplative consciousness is going to be a formidable challenge indeed. But on the other hand, this is not a struggle we can avoid. The alternative is a jittery, jagged postmodern insanity.

Cheap music: MP3 Panda

Check this out:


Songs are only 5 cents each, and albums are generally 50 cents each at MP3 Panda.

Huge selection. Rare stuff. Bootlegs. Out of print.

Is it legal? They say so here.

Bill Moyers learns about the powers of Chi

This boggles my mind:

Visit to Iosepa, Utah

Two days ago, at the suggestion of my brother, our family piled into our car and drove to an old ghost town: Iosepa, Utah, which is located southwest of Tooele. It was an old Hawaiian Mormon settlement from 1889 to 1917, having been inhabited by several hundred Polynesians. It was raining fiercely when we arrived, and although the settlement is situated in the remote desert of Skull Valley, there were actually a dozen or so people there. Apparently these were descendants of the original settlers, and they were just finishing up a meal and party they had had at the adjacent pavilion.

As my mom and dad usually do, especially with Polynesians, they began asking the people questions and soon found out that they knew who they were, and that they knew relatives and friends of theirs when our family lived in Hawaii from 1971 to 1976. It was amazing that my parents could find connections with them. Despite the rain, we had a good time getting to know these people and the settlement of their ancestors. It was a memorable day excursion.

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to live life deliberately, and purposely avoid the trite

Proof of Joseph Smith's picture

This moved me immensely:

I got to meet Lyle from Napoleon Dynamite

This nearly changed my life.

Daybreak Scare

Playing for Change

My daughter told me a funny joke

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It goes like this:

Why did the chicken cross the playground?

To get to the other slide!!!!

Ah hah hah hah hah! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I love this humor! Agggggggghhhh hah ha ha ha ha! Keep it coming! I can't get enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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Singin' "Sweet Caroline" at Eastmont

My nephew Sammy wrote this to me

"Sometimes God has to roll you down the river some more to get all the rough parts out of your life. We are just rocks in a stream! God is just trying to get you smooth!!"

Shay the Baseball Player

A great story somebody sent me:

What would you do?....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line, there isn't one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

'When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.
Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do.
He cannot understand things as other children do.
Where is the natural order of things in my son?'
The audience was stilled by the query.
The father continued.
'I believe that when a child like Shay,who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes
in the way other people treat that child.'

Then he told the following story:
Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked,

'Do you think they'll let me play?'

I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps..

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said,

'We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.'

Shay struggled over to the team's bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.
In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again.
Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?
Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.

Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.
The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.
As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman's head, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, 'Shay, run to first! Run to first!'
Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.
He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.
Everyone yelled, 'Run to second, run to second!'

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball . the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.
All were screaming, 'Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay'

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third
base, and shouted, 'Run to third! Shay, run to third!'

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, 'Shay, run home! Run home!'

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

'That day', said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, 'the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world'.

Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

I am freedom when....

I am freedom when I've no nervous sweat, freedom when the little things pass as insignificant.

I am freedom when eating is not psychological, when breathing flows, when the pipes are not clogged.

I am freedom when uninterrupted, when inspiration is seen and mapped out in my mind, when fear is replaced by ideas.

I am freedom when the true Spirit's near, when love is not vegetables and duty, when my horses gallop without fear of cliffs.

I am freedom when I laugh spontaneously, when appearance is not lurking in my foremind, when getting out of bed is rolling over and getting up.

I am freedom when smiles, heart, love, compliments spring out unabashed.

I am freedom when my pulse rings clear, my energy flows continuously and strong, my intentions are not overbearing but cordial and warm.

I am freedom when I see lovable sinners, including the mirror.

I am freedom unconscious, unediting, breathing on paper, bringing the value of wisdom back to my mind and sight. And freedom is living and love.