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VIDEO ALERTS

I WATCHED A FINE VERSION OF Shakespear’s RICHARD II, HENRY VII 7 HENRY V, all on several discs together, called THE HOLLOW CROWN.  showing the rise & fall of a dynasty, and the battle for survival . Falstaff is featured in the middle one. Wonderful guy! Universal Pictures put it out and what’s amazing, one can easily understand what they are saying.  Has Jeremy Irons and others but you will like them, . .I got mine at the library. 

“LIFE OF CRIME”

This is really an entertaining  movie of a kidnapping gone wrong. Don’t snatch a women (Jennifer Anston) when her husband (Tim Robbins) is divorcing her. He could save thousands a year if she was killed.  But you’ll love the surprise ending. This may be the last Elmor Leonard did before he died. I’m still trying to discover his original ending to “3:10 to Yuma” as the last two movies of it  don’t seem right.

PORGY & BESS

It seems there is some minor conspiracy going around , resulting in the fact that I can’t rent or buy the old standard about the Crip who ran around on a flat board but was in love with a gorgeous woman. I just wanted to see Sammy Davis, Jr. As “Sportin’ Life’ again, he was such a jerk. Was there something about the plot that isn’t politically correct?

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS PUERTO RICO

It seems we have a couple of areas around the world we have claimed and probably will eventually become legitimate states, just like Hawaii & Alaska. I can understand Alaska as it’s almost contiguous and has (Had) lots of oil. But Puerto Rico?  Let’s look at a little history here first. Columbus discovered it in 1493 and it was Spanish until we beat the pants off them in 1898, when we took it from them as war loot. What the hell are they, anyway? Unincorporated US territory, with no vote in congress, but are all born US citizens. We have to dump tons of money into them just to keep them afloat, a near neighbor to Cuba, our arch enemy.  One good thing , they have a swell flag that we should abscond with , as it’s so much better than that monstrosity we have been using ever since the Revolution.  There is only 3.5 million people in the whole island, most of them Spanish, with very few blacks. Hey, why not import a bunch of those Immigrants from Syria? They could all get citizenship in ten or twenty years?  It’s a problem as about half of the citizens want to be a State, but the rest want to keep the welfare coming in.   I guess we’ll leave it to the Polititian’s, they’ll take care of it, like they have for the past hundred years.

QUESTION?

  Why were the Confederates called “Confederates” in the South? I thought a confederate as your pal?

ANSWER;   From a confederacy, a loose league of persons,  united in a league of sorts.  Not exactly a friend to their cohorts to the North.  Just imagine,  we were about the last country in the World to outlaw slavery.  If we could have waited a few years, Slavery would be illegal in the South , ergo, no Civil war that killed how many of our youth?

Don’t despair, but I just added “ Dying”  to my “Bucket “ list. In fact, that’s the only item on it.

VIDEO ALERT

If you want to be disturbed, see “KILL THE MESSENGER”, based on Prize-winning Journalist Gary Webb’s involvement of the CIA’s secret funding for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels during the 1980’s. The CIA ran him out of a job, he died a few years later from multible gunshots to the head. Suicide! Uh-hu,

END GAME

Americans have a hard time even talking about death, but other cultures really get into it.  For instance, when Shri Ukteshwar died, (Yogananda’s guru) his body was stripped, he was kind of sat up, and people hung  around for a bit to bid him goodbye., with his mouth hanging open, at least someone closed his eyes .

One way to look at this is when a baby is ready to be born, does it hollar “No, no, I won’t go” , so is birth a form of death? Or vice versa.

IRAQ/Afganistan

I see we finally found “Weapons of Mass Destruction”;   The United States Military !

QUOTES

When two people are under the influence of the most insane, most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal and exhausting condition until death do them part.     George B. Shaw

Man is a dog's ideal of what God should be.     Holbrook Jackson (Who's he?)

WANT TO BORROW MY PET?

Have you ever wondered where our disease comes from?  The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history   ___ smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria, plague , measles and cholera  ,  infectious diseases that evolved from disease of animals, even though most of the microbes responsible for our own epidemic illnesses are now almost confined to humans.  Until WW2 more victims of war died of war-borne microbes than wounds.

Microbes have a well developed system of propagation.  From our point of view, genital sores, diarrhea, and coughing are "symptoms of disease. From a germ's point of  view, they're clever strategies to broadcast the germ. By raising our body temperature, we try to bake the germs, before we get baked ourselves. this sometimes works, it can only e temporary, like flu & colds, to which our resistance is only temporary,, Against some diseases, though, including measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis and the ow defeated smallpox, our antibodies have given us life-long immunity. Go back about 10,000 years, and see that the hunter-gatherers didn't have these diseases, which only occurred after we domesticated animals. Some infectious diseases are surprisingly recent; around 1600 BC for smallpox, 400 BC for mumps, 200 BC for leprosy, 1840 AD for polio 1959 for AIDS.

  What happened here?  Sedentary farmers became surrounded by their feces and also diseases transmitting rodents, attracted by the farmer’s stored food. The forest clearings made by African farmers provided ideal breeding habitats for maleria-transmitting mosquitos.

  When we domesticated social animals (cows, pigs,, etc.) they were already afflicted by epidemic virus just waiting to be transferred to us.

   Where did it all come from?  Deadly gifts from our animal friends.

Measles                   Cattle

Tuberculosis            cattle

Smallpox                  cattle (cowpox)

Pertussis             pigs & ducks

Malaria              birds, chickens & ducks?

AIDs                     monkeys   1959

Lyme disease       ticks  1962?

Typhus                  squirrels ?

Syphilis                 Maybe the only one that came from the New World? 

An example; Measles virus is closely related to virus causing rinderpest, but not humans. Measles in turn doesn't affect cattle. It seems the virus transferred from cattle to humans and then evolved into the measles virus by changing its properties to adapt to us.

  Our intimacy with animals has been going on for 9,000 years, and farmers have been living close to them and their feces, urine, sores, and blood. (they like to drink the blood)..

  Next time you want to get a cute little cuddly dog, cat or rabbit, think about what horrible disease it will bear upon you.

HOW MANY WAYS?

 Ever since I was a young man , except my stint in college, where I didm't eat meat only because I couldn't afford it except for a foray into hamburger made from horse-meat ( I got it from a veterinarian).  I've kept track and there seem to be several reasons why we take up the onerous task of same.

            1. DISCIPLINE;   In order to follow D. Guirdjieff, one has to get control of one's self. Ergo, what is the hardest thing to give up (except sex) for you?  It turned out the giving up meat was a big problem for me, therefore that is what I had to do.

            2. .SPIRITUALITY;  My first marriage was at the Self Realization Sanctuary in Santa Monica but Yogananda specified we must be vegetarians (this was way before Vegans appeared ).

            3.  HEALTH - There's always this nagging concept that eliminating meat is better for your health. Our family doctor,Dr. Beiler, who I helped birth all my kids at home in Laguna Beach, had even written the book 'FOOD IS YOUR BEST MEDICINE' , no meat, but aucchini was his wonder food. .

            4.   PHYSICAL-SCIENTIFIC; Check out your intestine length. According to Sri Yukteswar (Yoganandas’ guru) the body itself tell you what you should eat. The length of your intestine, the design of your teeth, all are related to what we should eat.

            LETS’ LOOK AT THE RELATIVE LENGTH OF DIGESTIVE CANALS AND TEETH;

CARNIVOROUS  -  The Digestive canal , ( measured from the stomach to the anus) is 3 to 5 lengths long, the stomach is spherical. (Sabre tooth Tigers !)

HARBIVOROUS - 20 TO 28 lengths long. The stomach is more extended & of compound structure. (Cow)

FRUGIVOROUS  -  10 to 12 times length of body. Stomach is broader in duodenum, serves purpose of a 2nd stomach, Th first 12 inches of the small intestine to the  Jejunum. (Only bats?)

   CONSIDERATION; Are we considered Frugivorous animal?

        WE MAY ALSO LOOK AT OUR TEETH TO SEE WHERE WE BELONG IN THE FOOD CHAIN.;

  CARNIVEROUS;  Incisors lightly developed, the canines are very long, small & pointed. Molars are also pointed for tearing flesh

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HARBIVEROUS  -  Incisors are well developed, Canines are sometimes developed as weapons (Elephants),  Molars are broad tipped & furnished with enamel on sides only.

FRUGIVOROUS -  All teeth nearly the same height, canines are little projected, conical and blunt (Not intended for seizing prey). Molars are broad -topped & furnished with enamel folds to prevent waste caused by their side motion.

  Well, if this hasn't convinced you to turn onto a bat, I can't help you anymore.

 

 

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