Watergate and The Water Gate

When I was old enough to have very strong opinions about television shows but not old enough to note the difference between reality tv and non-reality tv, my Mom would watch something she called "Watergate."  This was the most boring show I could imagine.  I hadn't yet been introduced to 24/7 Headline News or sports news shows or televised golf.. at least not much of it, anyway.

I had no idea that this television show was a real trial.  I just thought it was horrible television.  And once I walked right up to the set and turned if off while my Mother was watching.  Maybe she had looked away or maybe I wanted to flaunt the fact that I could tell it was garbage even if I thought she couldn't.  I don't remember doing it but I do remember the aftermath.  It was asked of me "How would you feel if someone turned off the tv during 'Wild Kingdom?' "   Well, I suppose I'd just go turn it back on, I probably said and probably still would say.  I used to love that show.  I wonder how it would appear to me now.  But I have no desire to watch more than five minutes of Watergate.

Today on J. Vernon McGee's Through the Bible broadcast at TTB.org it was mentioned that Ezra read the Bible at The Water Gate, in Jerusalem, that is.  So I did a quick Google search to see if anyone pinpointed a connection between Nehemiah who I think was the ruler at the time, and Nixon.

The Bible Translation According to J. Vernon McGee

In my listening today, I heard Mister J. Vernon McGee from Through the Bible at TTB.org say that there should not be a translation of the Bible released until it's been worked on by committee for twenty five years.

I wonder how long and by whom any translations he was involved with are extant?  Maybe it's time for someone to do that.  Or continue that.

I don't think it's going to be me.  My one semester of Hebrew was not sufficient for me to even learn the alphabet.  Ashamed to say it,,,, but let''s just say there were extenuating circumstances.  It really shouldn't take more than what?  A week to really really learn an alphabet- once someone knows a related one.

Once someone told me that English was Semitic.  I'm not sure in what way they said it, but I know they didn't say it that way.  What they meant though had real merit.  They meant that our alphabet is Semitic.  Of course that is true but just like our culture, it's been grafted onto something and then Greekified.  How is it that our alphabet is so like Hebrew but our words are so unlike it?

Downton Abbey Season Number r Quote

Alright.  I don't have my glasses on but I can almost read what I'm typing.

And what's the difference?  isn't reading the result of seeing most of the letters and filling in the gaps?  Surely reading is not the act of being able to discern every letter in order!  That's not reading; it's a start.

Today in Downton Abbey, which I hope I'm spelling correctly, but can't really tell.... there was a quote by the newly hired pig farmer that struck a chord.  Generally movies about pig farmers are meant to covey some sort of concrete profundity; due to the pig's place in our culture- pearls before swine; she eats like a pig; he sweats like a pig (they don't sweat) Sweathogs... silk purse out of a sow's ear... piggies gone to market.... pig in a poke, pig at a trough, pig out, Porky Pig, Porky's, Piggly Wiggly.... they often stand at the crossroad of daily life with the profound....

Anyway, the newly hired pig farmer said that work is just like getting old.  And it certainly is.

It's the worst thing in the world except for its alternative.

As the Dowager Countess said, it's a choice between death and life.  And even there the pig stands at the crux, or is it the cruz?  As a helpful sistainer for people, the dear piggies is forbidden, but like bacon; so tasty.  Isn't everything better with bacon?  I haven't found anything that isn't- well, maybe whipped cream, but I've never tried it.

Until my taste for meat goes away... and I just ate a delicious Sausage McMuffin; which I assume majored in pig..... I'll probably love bacon.

Panacea and Placebo

Panacea and Placebo could be twins; an Artemis and Apollo with Placebo being the boy.  Or would Panacea be a Diana?

Today I was talking. and talking, and talking-  well no so much as that, about what has made my eyes better.  Well, there's  an increase of vegetables with a decrease in fruits with lots of water and little salt.  Then there was the moment I added salt back after watching the television show about the kid being poisoned with salt while I was deciding whether to eat potato chips with French Onion Dip along with my huge amounts of water drinking..... thankfully the salt won before I passed out.

Then there has been a time of salt and lots of added raw vegetables and then added fruit and cooked vegetables along with lots of raw.  Whatever it is- breathing in Vick's and going to acupuncture a few times and two years of positive thinking- something's working.

It is very easy for me to picture that disease could well be anthropomorphizes as Mucus.  And wherever that Beast gathers could be the type of disease.  Ehret says that mucus ni the sinuses is a cold and lower is pheumonisa and it could be tuberculosis if left too long.

Now I actually believe there are germs and they do something other than stare up at us from underneath the microscope.  However, just because something is somewhere doesn't mean it put itself there or that it caused the situation.

Just the Magic, Please

Today is a magical day.  Every day is a magical day; and notice that we don't have to put every ight next to day just because they could also  sometimes be a different word.

I'm typing this without my glasses and I can almost read it.  In fact, since I know what I am typing I can actually make out most of the letters.  I can certainly tell when the red squiggly line comes on that tells me there is a typo.  So my eyes continue to improve.  The other day I had a slight headache, but that was the only day in many where I've worn glasses to read, taken them off, put them on, etc. over and over.  Generally I really don't want to wear my glasses to drive and I can see fine except for reading, but if I back up farther than usual I can read better.

My dear cousin and her children had the best Disney vacation.  My acupuncturist spoke to me today.  My work week went well and is now concluded and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  I have been craving McDonald's, which isn't new, but I have been limiting myself to the cheap Sausage McMuffin without the two dollar egg, and the iced coffee- and refilling it mostly with unsweet tea.  My McDonald's general menu has changed.  I was avoiding sugar for awhile (one word) but of course since being introduced to Arnold Ehret I have been eating much more fruit and trying to eat what I crave or better yet, figure out what my body really wants and have some of that... not just whatever sounds good at the moment or whatever is handy or whatever I am in the habit of eating.

A few years ago I was into vegetables and avoiding sugar and salt.  That meant I wasn't eating much fruit but I was eating berries such as black, blue and some straw.  Once I figured out that strawberries aren't really that sweet when not perfect, I ate more of them.  I was craving salt and specifically French Onion Dip, fried chicken, and potato chips.  One day it got to the point where I had to eat salt.  I would avoid it and drink so much water that I was going to the bathroom all day; but jobless at the time, I had nothing else to do and really- no matter how stupid it sounds now, looking back- I guess I fell for the marketing scheme.... You know, water- good, salt- bad.

Hello, we need water and we need salt.  That really shouldn't be up for debate. 

It wasn't until my teenage years that people started thinking they couldn't walk across the street without a water bottle in their hands.  That's the way Joan Rivers put it once; and actually it wasn't until years after that.  It wasn't until my teen years that water was actually for sale in any form other than sparkling to the general public.  I'm sure water was for sale somewhere; but our conception of it was that it was free.

Nothing's really free, but how nice it was to think that one of the necessities of life was free and available for every one.  (not everyone; which would be a pronoun? or stand in for one?)  I digress.

water was considered free.  And there were public water fountains and people could ask for water at restaurants - maybe not in big cities, I don't know- without feeling as if they should pay or tip the server who brought a glass.  We didn't feel like we owed anybody anything for dirtying the glass or taking up time.  We were drinking and people need to drink.  Then Coke took out the syrup and still charged for it; calling it Dasani, and because Perrier had already done it with individual bottles of sparkling, and some other companies did it with still; suddenly water cost money.

And suddenly we needed to drink it every moment we were awake; which intruded upon our sleep because we all have to get up in the middle of the night to get rid of it after we reach age fourty five because our bladders aren't made for doing that all day every day.  Duh.

And we blame it on caffeine.

Caffeine may well have something to do with this.  I certainly crave caffeine and am drinking much of it these days, and much of it in some days past.  I used to avoid but crave Coke.  Now I want coffee and tea.  But for years I've considered a category I want and alternately give in to or try to avoid- called "Things That Are Not Good For Me."

I think the key is that everything is good for me- if it is taken in quantities of one grain or less.  But growing up, food was divided between "good for you" and "not good for you."  So many days, I knew without hesitation that I really really wanted "Something Not Good For Me."  I don't remember what this category actually consisted of at first.  I didn't like food.  My Mom would arrange colorful bites of everything available on a blue plate to entice me.  And it worked.  Over time- a long time; I came to like every thing.  But it was a very very long process.  I didn't like everything until two years ago.  And even now, I really don't like everything because I tried a liver-cooked onion the other day to make sure I didn't like it again; and I did not.  I planned to eat one bite of liver.

I did not.

It was a very good decision.

When I was eight; everything I wanted to buy was a quarter.  It didn't matter if it was a case-quarter or not.  But my Dad would take me to the convenience store in Westgate and I could choose between a bag of potato chips; which seldom won; a soka- either grape or orange; which seldom won; a comic book- which often won; a candy bar- which sometimes won; or a couple dime candy boxes, with a nickel one.  The dime and nickel candies were things like rectangle boxes of lemon heads (which I did not get) or jaw breakers (in an aqua box which I did get) and grape sticks of long gum and maybe those Boston Baked Beans.  I didn't want Coke or Pepsi, but I did like it.  I liked every sugary thing I tasted, but clearly some more than others.  I also liked bright colors and of course; associated purple with grape.  I love purple and always have; and orange with orange- which is my least favorite bright color and I am very particular about it.  I like it on natural things like fruit and sunsets and tropical fish.

So I'm not sure at that age what foods would have been "Something Not Good For Me."  But whatever that food group contained; I didn't want it all the time; but I did want it when I wanted it.  I got very tired of taking thirty minutes to choke down a hard boiled egg while the other kids were at recess.  But it wasn't just eggs.  i didn't like to eat.  It seemed to take me just as long to choke down a whole apple.  Slices. on the other hand, did not intimidate me.

I would even eat the seeds and parts of the core.

It's amazing to me now what I was picky about then.  Eggs were one of the last obstacles to loving every food.  So was beef; I believe- well, steak.  Hamburger, meatloaf, salisbury steak, chopped steak- I love and always have- but a slab of meat isn't so great now and wasn't so great then.

Some time in high school I gave up pork for awhile.  But I never lost my taste for bacon and have never.  I did lose my taste for ham during that time and have since gained it back.  Today, nothing sounds better than a slab of cold ham on bread with maynaisse and butter.  But that would have disgusted me as a child and during that time also.

Then I gave up mammals.

Then I started eating meat again.

I never gave up birds and they were my favorite meat until recently.

Extremely recently, I started associating birds with omens, signs, augurs and wonders- spiritual activity of all sorts.  The other day I drove around, happy to be in the fresh blue sunlight, and noticed that wherever I went I was happy and wherever I went there were birds leading the way.  Now I realize this wasn't as obvious as the blue herons that lead us down the river while canoeing who are obviously trying to keep an eye on people.  But driving along in the sun on rural roads; one sees birds.  And if one follows them. and likes to drive, it is very easy to associate following birds with being free, happy and care-free.  Birds lead me to where I want to go.  Driving in the country- taking new paths. being underneath canopy roads.... what is better?

One day I drove around and found a neighborhood with peacocks..... lots and lots of them.  I love them.  They taste like chicken.

Actually I have no idea what they taste like, but I like them from knowing that their sound is used in Tarzan movies.  I like them from their association with wisdom evidenced in the Tiffany Chapel in Winter Park's center gold panels celbebrating Sophia; a name (and Loren, a woman) I love.  I want to go to the Hagia Sophia and I want wisdom.  I don't, however, want to live near peacocks, but I like watching them and my dear friend MJ collected their castoffs.

I've eaten chicken, turkey, duck, Cornish hen, pigeon, goose and maybe more but birds were my favorite meat until recently when it switched or switched back to beef.

For a long time, "Something Not Good For Me" which I define as a food I really wanted but thought I should avoid, was anything chocolate.  My taste for fruit flavors with sugar wasn't gone bun it may as well have been since it was trumped, not Trumped, by chocolate.

Then, there was a time when that group was chocolate or mocha.  Then the group expanded to include chocolate and more darker things like dark chocolate more often, mocha more and then plain coffee and tea.  So most recently it was a while group of dark plant materials containing caffeine; but of wildly different amounts including Coke.

So what are these things "not good for me" and why do I want them?

Another day, I drove around and followed birds (not really but saw birds wherever I went, and counted them.  Then I forgot the number and don't think I blogged about it.  But the most interesting example was when I went to another county's library and for professional reasons wanted to stop in.  Also it was for personal reasons.  I was driving around and wanted to explore.  I got out of the car and walked up to the door before i realized it was closed.  Getting back in my car proved exciting because a big rooster seemed to think he needed to guard his hen from me and I ran around and jumped in the passenger side before he got too close.  Before that i had seen many birds of various kinds including hawks and I think a bald eagle.  I'm not sure if it was that day; but I do see them, but right now it's rare.  There were birds outside my doctor's office- which I was convinced were singing to celebrate the fact that my insurance got me a discount and is not a waste of money anymore.  No, I'm not sure of that; but when I notice that I saved money and noticed birds being happy--- I notice.

Today a black bird was pecking at a discarded McDonald's wrapper.  I thought it was funny and I told him not to eat junk food; partly in jest because I don't think he knows English and I ate at McDonald's today.

I have been collecting the Monopoly pieces and when I looked at the wrapper closer after the crow left; it seems that those black pieces against the bright yellow wrapper were the things he was trying to get.

I wondered about that.  Would a crow or grackle or whatever kind of bird that was be attracted to a junk food wrapper?  I know they'll peck anything to investigate. but what do they want to eat?  It seems to me that there are not birds of prey.  All birds will eat whatever is little enough to eat that they like.  And I think they all will eat bugs and spiders and most bigger ones will eat lizards.

So, was the bird leading me to McDonald's or McDono's as I like to say?  Or Mac Donald's as I like to say?  Why do I like that place?

I learned during the time that I started eating salt again without trying to avoid it- due to near fainting spells, one almost vomiting session during which there was a true life tv story of a kid killed by intentional salt poisoning, that I certainly didn't need a whole combo.  I at first craved the fries, then craved the drink, then settled on sandwich with drink.  Then I got into the iced coffee and then I watered down the sugar with unsweet tea, which I am back to as of today. 

But what is the connection between wanting these items and should be having them?  At one point I did not like the fries.  At other points I gave them up because I thought eating only one junk food item was better than eating two.  There is a connection here between what I want, what I think I want and what I actually should be eating.  But what is that?

If the two Monopoly game pieces that the crow was pecking right outside my car parking space at my home bring me a million dollars, well I'll just have to give half of it to the Church.  Childhood movies might lead me to the notion that he, a black bird, leads me to bad things.  But I don't believe that.

The Third

In the English, the translation is usually given as Jesus is expected to come quickly.  In English, that could mean soon, or fast.  But we've let them tell us that every age since the apostles expected Him right away.  And that's just not true.  There is a balance between being on guard and never knowing.  Of course the disciples didn't expect two thousand years.  But there is no reason tho think they were shocked to find a decade had gone by without Jesus returning.

When Jesus is spoken of in a  serious way, no one denies that He was real.  They just leave out the resurrection.  Well, the whole thing hinges on that, so of course Easter has been relegated  and Christmas emphasized and both perverted.  But they just say things like "It's been two thousand years since the death of Jesus" as if everything after the crucifixion didn't happen.  There were forty days in there.  And as important as they are to the Christian faith, it's no more difficult to believe than walking on water or turning bread and fishes from one boy's lunch to feed a crowd.

There are certain miracles that can be explained away and of course every miracle can be ignored.  But the tactic is different for discounting the  resurrection.  It's just ignored, while the imminent return of Christ is assumed as a rrecurring two thousand year cyclic mistake.

Three Christian Lies

I'm typing this without my glasses.  And I can't really read it.  But I can kind of read it.  This is important to me because a month a go I would not have been able to read it at all.

I received a book from a co-worker about a mucuspless diet.  And I wonder how many words I'm spelling incorrectly.  But, something has happened since I read that book.  And it is something good.  I have replaced my currrent expensive preseciption with my old one.  I only kept the old frames because since they were so expensive and I've heard of a place that collects them and gives them to the poor, I thought I would do that some time.  I never expected to need my old glasses once my eyes progressed beyond them.  But they did.  They progressed back.  My old presctiption is too strong.  And so is my current one.

Right now, if I put on my dollar store plus one magnifiers, I think I'll see fine.

Let me check.

Well, I can't check, without going down to the car and getting them.  I have my current glasses somewhere, I have my old ones here and I have my dollar store ones in the car.  My sun glasses are here and they don't have any magnifier or prescription at all.

The book I read, by Arnold Ehret, convinced me that the way I've been thinking about health might be corrected in a straightforward way.  I already knew that doctors don't know much about health.  After all, that's not their business.  Their business is diesease.  I already knew that dieticians are on to something better but don't really know all that much.

Many years ago, my cousin asked me what I thought snot was for.  I thought it was a great question.  Why would the body make snot when you're sick?  Well, maybe it doesn't.  Maybe it's trying to get rid of the snot that is already there, when you're sick.  That had not occured to me as a possible answer to that question until I read it in that book.  Thank you dear co-worker.  You handed me a book by the London founder of International Studies, which changed the way I thought about history, and you handed this one to me which changed the way I thought about diet.

It had already occured to me that maybe it was not the percentages of carbs, fats, sugars and protein that is the thing.  It had already occured to me that vitamins A, B, C, D, E and so forth might not be the variables we need to think upon.  I thought perhaps that cutting up fiber and making it very small made it no longer fiber.  Maybe something in oranges when they're fresh isn't in them when they're old- it might not matter so much what we're getting as much as how we're getting it.

When I was young my Mom made glue from water and flour.  Well, isn't that what bread is?  Isn't my gut filled with glue or something like that?

We know that in some bodies there are pounds of undigested things.  So how could we possibly shove more and more combinations of countless variables in our mouths and think for one second that the process of eating more and more could ever fix us?

The first lie I'd like to talk about, which isn't Christian at all, but accepted by all the Christians I've ever heard of- is agriculture.  Cain was the farmer, wasn't he?  Abel, the good son, ate and raised the animals.  But neither was what God told us to eat.  He gave us fruit.  He said it was okay to eat the other things, but we were commanded to eat fruit and green herbs.  It's very clear.  We have just put six thousand years of assumptions between us and that clear statement.

Gorillas don't eat protein, yet there are many men, myself included, who would like to look a tiny bit more gorilla like.  Hmmm... they eat fruit and green herbs, do they not?  Animals in zoos and animals under veterinary care and animals in the wild eat about four things.  And when they are sick, they eat something else and it either kills them or makes them better.  They don't stay dieseased for the last third of their life giving all their money to pharmeceutical companies.  They just don't.  And now that our pets go to vets that do prescribe, our pets live longer but live diseased as well.  Animals are healthy until they die- unless people are involved in their care.

So that's the first lie.  My Christian or post Christian civilazaiton has convinced me that I should eat everything, or eat many things or eat often or eat three times a day or eat this or eat that or eat this other thing in comvination with hundred of other things,,, but maybe the truth is, I should have been eating fruits and green herbs.  I can't do that now or it would kill me, but I can move in that direction and I have.

For a few years I have been eating more veggetables.  But not more ffruyt.  Recently I have started eating less.  I am still reeling from the time I drank so much water and ate so little salt that I almost died.  I was watching a television program about a boy poisoned with salt.  So I did what I often did.  I drank more water and peed some more.  And I kept doing it.  Suddenly, I really really needed to eat some chips.  Could that be why the only thing I wanted to eat was fried chicken and potato chips?  Well, of couse Iknew the human body needs salt.  But wasn't water good and salt bad?  Could I really need salt or was I just wanting it?  Could my body actually be wanteing what I needed, you know, as a trusted ally rather than a carnal enemy, tempting me to fall off the wagon?

No matter how you think we started, people don't need much more than fruit and green herbs.  But we eat so much more, so of course our nutrition isn't right.  We know it's not right.  But could this be the way it's not?

I decided that my stuffy ears for the last twenty years was something I had gotten used to somewhat and not my imagination or an exageration.  I breathed in Vick's thorough my nose and breathed out through my mouth for about four hours one day.  My ears, deep inside, way way deep inside, started draining. ...just a little.  But I knew I was on the right track.  I went to an acupuncturist and during the first session, they drained more.... deep deep inside there.  I've been three or four times.  And they've drained a little every day/// almost.  I went home for Easter and they  stopped draining as I resumed the SAD diet.  Standard American Diet, and didn't start draining again until I was back home two days, eating more squash., and drinking more kale and  fruit smoothies.  I haven't given up junk food for more than five days in a row, but I just eat less of it at one time.  Something has changed for the better.

I was watching The Ten Commandments on a big screen on Palm Sunday.  I realized that the level of detail I could see was absolutely amazing.  Well, it was IMAX.  I had just seen it a few months ago on my own television but I could see the characters Charlton Heston was writing on the papyrus.  I could see the pretty Hebrew girl's toes.  And I could see more detail with my glasses off than with them on.  Now as I write this, I still can't quite read what I'm tryping, but I can see all the red marks when I misspell a word and I can kind of read most of it.  In between that first day when I took my glasses off, which was Palm Sunday, and today, I could see better with my old prescription and then with my dollar glasses and now  my eyes are a little better than that.

Two years of positive thinking has helped, I'm sure.  But I haven't changed my diet that much, only been to acupuncture a few times and I see real results.  It didn't occur to me that the stuffiness in my sinuses would affect my eyes, but of course, it does.

The second lie I'll call Christian, is how can I be happy in Heaven if there are people- anybody, suffering forever?  Well, apparently, hopefully, probably, it's not the torture that is forever, it's the fire.  Everlasting fire will consume sin away... but it won't ttake long to be consumed.  Yes, hell is the only reason many people become Christian, but it's also the main reason why Christianity doesn't make any sense.  This little change, or is it the biggest change possible, changes everything.  I just heard it spoken of on the radio tonight.  Obviously if it's on the radio it's true, right?

I've known forever that I could pick  the parts of my faith I like and leave the rest.  I'm just not comfortable doing that.  Not liking something doesn't make it true.  We all know that, but we all do that.  We're the kind of Democrats we want to be.  We're the kind of Americans we think are best, etc.  BUt so much of the Bible is obviously true that I didn't want to throw parts of it away.  Now I guess I don't have to, I can just agree with a n interpretation I've heard once.

Reading Julian of Norwich I found the idea of Universalism in a passage older than I had known.  And of course I want that to be true.  But, does the Bible really support that?  Can I believe most of it?  I suppose I only do bellieve most of it since I'm just a person... but I'm not comfortable with that.  Why am I uncomfortable?  Well, I suppose it's because I'm a person.

Now I have become so distracted that I don't even remember the third lie I wanted to write on.  Oh well, I've had enough transformation for one month.  I'm going to go rest my eyes.


Give me your eyes for just one second, give me your eyes so I can see...

On second thought, please don't.  I think there is only os much a person can  handle.  Seeing God's shadow burnt Moses' face.  Yesterday I told a colleague at church that I believed if any of us were filled with the Holy Spirit too long we would die.  I do think that's true but I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that.  But wouldn't it be like an orgasm but stonger and we just couldn't do that for a year, surely not.

We;re just people.  And people start out writing about three important things and then forget one of them before they finish.