Top Bar

I used to have many separate blogs, but rather than repeat that exercise for Google to destroy again, I have added the blogs as separate pages here on the Top Bar. I will add past posts as I recover them from other sources, but will also add new posts as the occasion arises; so always check, there's bound to be something new.
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Genes Stuff

I loved my old Genes blog design, but this will have to do.

I'll try to post some of the older things here as I find them, but will certainly continue with the new...


:: Creating our own traditions

Originally posted on Simple living...with kids:
Our modern lives often feel disconnected from the past.
Often our families immigrated or moved from their original homes. Or maybe, like me, you’re a third culture kid, raised in several cultures and countries, and not really belonging to any of them. And sometimes as adults we have chosen to move away from where we grew up, for jobs or partners or other reasons.
As a result, we often feel that we don’t have any traditions. So businesses have stepped in, ready to make wealth from our insecurity and loss.
Corporate traditions: rich on dollars, low on meaning
Corporate traditions:
  • They tell us we need to shop and give expensive gifts for Christmas.
  • They tell us we’re “cheap” if we handmake a gift for someone we love, spending hours and giving our time and effort.
  • They promote the idea that Santa gives gifts, the Easter Bunny brings chocolate eggs…
Read more here



:: Stateless

Reading a report on BBC News about the UN warning of 12 million stateless, mainly children.

Children born to stateless parents become stateless too
"Some 12 million people around the world do not have citizenship of any country, and are being denied basic human rights as a result, the UN has warned."

Nobody on this planet is 'stateless,' we are all citizens of the planet Earth.

This nonsense of borders and frontiers, countries and citizenship is all bullshit. Manmade ideals by those that want to control; the power-hungry megalomaniacs who strive for domination and enrichment. Surely the time has come to banish these people and begin a civilised approach to the world and its people.





:: Buying Time
Author Unknown

"A man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door. “Daddy, may I ask you a question?” “Yeah, sure, what is it?” replied the man. “Daddy, how much money do you make an hour? “That’s none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing?” the man said angrily. “I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?” pleaded the little boy. “If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour.” “Oh,” the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, “Daddy, may I borrow $10.00 please?”

The father was furious. “If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is just so you can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. I work long, hard hours everyday and don’t have time for such childish games.” The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little boy’s questioning. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?

After an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think he may have been a little hard on his son. Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10.00, and he really didn’t ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy’s room and opened the door. “Are you asleep son?” he asked. “No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy. “I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,” said the man. “It’s been a long day and I took my aggravation out on you. Here’s that $10.00 you asked for.”

The little boy sat straight up, beaming. “Oh, thank you daddy!” he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man. “Why did you want more money if you already had some?” the father grumbled.

“Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied. “Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?”

- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/09/11/buying-time/




:: A Mission






:: Baby Names





:: Political Correctness





:: ‘Drowned’ Boy Reveals the Psychology of Miracles

by Benjamin Radford

 "A young boy's recovery from drowning earlier this week is being credited to a miracle. Dale Ostrander, 12, was swimming in the ocean at Long Beach, WA., when he got sucked under by a rogue wave. He was there as part of a church group, who cried and prayed while searchers looked for the boy. About fifteen minutes later two rescuers found Ostrander, pulled him to safety, and performed CPR. he was then flown to an Oregon hospital, where he was put into an induced coma and recovered on Monday. Ostrander's friends and family are crediting prayer (with a little help from doctors, of course). His recovery has been widely dubbed a miracle.

Was it a miracle? How we interpret miracles depends on several factors, including our religious beliefs and our knowledge of medicine and statistics. For many, unusual and positive events can seem miraculously rare, when in reality they are not. For example, many people consider surviving an airplane crash to be a miracle. In fact, statistics show that most people involved in airplane crashes and accidents survive without life-threatening injuries. Plane crashes are very rare, and incidents where everyone aboard is killed are incredibly rare. Since surviving a plane crash is far more common than being killed in a plane crash, it's wonderful for the survivors, but hardly unusual.

Other times what appears to be a miracle to a layperson or a victim's family is not considered a miracle by medical professionals, who may see similar cases on a routine basis. Doctors know that it's not unusual for drowning victims—especially ones who have been underwater for about 20 minutes or less, as Ostrander was—to survive and fully recover.

As ABCNews reported, "Dr. Benjamin Abella, director of clinical research in the Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania said Ostrander's survival may be due to the fact that he was submerged in frigid water. "A number of studies have shown that hypothermia -- reduced body temperature -- is highly protective of the brain when it is starved for oxygen and blood flow," Abella told ABC News. "The water that bathed him was certainly quite cold, and it's likely that his core body temperature dropped during his cardiac arrest event." Abella said Ostrander's youth and overall health may have also helped his chances. "There have been a number of reported cases where people have been rescued from icy water and restored to health," he said. "These cases are not common, but they aren't as rare as one might think."

This is widely known in the medical community, and suggests that fatalistic predictions about Ostrander that appear in media accounts such as “they never expected him to live” (or in a contradictory prognosis, "expected him to be a vegetable”) were exaggerated. There's also a psychological process called confirmation bias, in which people tend to seek out, focus on, and remember information that supports their ideas and beliefs while ignoring or downplaying information that contradicts or undermines their beliefs.

This helps explain why, for example, God was credited for saving Ostrander’s life through miraculous, divine intervention, but He was not blamed for the boy’s accident. Surely God could have simply prevented Ostrander from drowning in the first place, saving his friends and family untold grief and worry (not to mention medical bills). If you’re going to credit God for saving the boy's life, logically you should blame God for threatening the boy’s life. How do people reconcile this contradiction? It goes back to the psychology of how the faithful, such as Ostrander’s parents, perceive God and divine actions. The idea of God trying to kill their child by drowning is hardly comforting, or something they would expect. But the idea of a benevolent God rescuing their son (especially after fervent prayers) is classic divine behavior and confirms their belief system, so that’s what they choose to focus on.

The facts are the same either way: a boy drowned and then recovered. Whether people choose to see a miracle in that is all a matter of psychology, statistics, and faith; we filter our perceptions, embracing a comforting interpretation of the events over a troubling one. Miracles are very much in the minds of those who see them.”


:: Wise thoughts on everything

1. Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

2. Life is sexually transmitted.

3. Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

4. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection make him a sandwich.

5. Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

6. Some people are like Slinkies... not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs...

7. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing...

8. Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

9. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

10. Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?

11. In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

12. Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Thanks to Hermit Jim

 

:: Men & Women

Yes, we are different species, we can't even think alike when we decide to go shopping.


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Life is a Labyrinth

Life is a Labyrinth