I was explaining to some homeschool friends (Hi Aubrey and Christina and Greta and Amy) that Sam has some interesting creative dance moves because we introduced her to Modern Dance via Pilobolus and Ok Go. You know, the treadmill guys? NO!? Well, here's the progression:
A Long, Long Time Ago, a group of silly guys made the Treadmill Video:
They made a whole bunch of other cool videos, which is really their trademark, and we watch them all the time. Firecracker knows all the words.
Cue 2011. Ok Go collaborated with a modern dance troupe called Pilobolus to make this one:
You really ought to check out the html5-interactive site where you can type in your own text and, well, it defies description. Just try it.
So, my daughters and I were so intrigued by this Pilobolus group that we spent an afternoon watching more videos of them.
Our favorite was probably this one, a great piece of shadow work.
This one is also brilliant, but a little disturbing.
But THIS one, this is the truly modern piece that Firecracker became fixated on and mimicked a LOT. She put on "shows" for us where she slowly rolled and contorted across the floor and pieces of furniture for WEEKS. (Sorry, no video of Firecracker. Use your imagination.)
Enjoy!
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Monday, November 14, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Vaccines, part 2: autism
Autism and vaccines has got to be one of the most controversial and passionately held opinions with respect to medicine. Are they or are they not connected?
Mainstream medicine would tell you that vaccines have been 100%, totally and completely cleared. No evidence, no chance, no way.
The anti-vaccine camp would have you believe that there are high-level conspiracies as well as low-level; well-crafted and transparent; evil men and women making selfish decisions and brazenly risking the well-being of children for profit, power and the sheer pleasure of it. And if they're Jenny McCarthy, they drop the f-bomb whenever possible.
I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, although I still have no earthly idea what it might be.
I'm not going to talk about my brother; as the scientific method is known to assert, one story, or "anecdote," doesn't prove or disprove anything. But there are an awful lot of anecdotes out there. The science says that any situation can have myriad factors in play - the only way to know if a thing might be true or false is to look at it in a large population, over time, taking into consideration factors that are already known to have an influence.
I have to admit that I was surprised at how much research has been done on vaccine safety. I can't speak to the objectivity of it, but there is a huge amount of it. Much more than I'm sure existed when I was first considering the decision 18 years ago. Interestingly the issues have changed somewhat, but the intensity of feeling against vaccines by the anti crowd is stronger.
Offit spent more time on the history of the anti-vaccine movement than I thought he might have. And a long history it is. When the smallpox vaccine first came out over 100 years ago in England, folks thought their children would become stupid like cows, or grow horns. Of course, today we think that's silly. But do parents have the right to be suspicious of potentially life-saving medical treatments for their children? That's an issue I'll cover in another post. Point is, parents did not respond well to patronizing "just trust me" back then, and they often don't today.
Let's move on from general suspicions to parents that have specific concerns about *their* child. So, the parents who believe that their children are autistic because of the vaccines they received, believe so against scientific reason. Are the crazy? Science would say "it could have been any of many, many 'triggers,' or they could have been genetically on-track to become autistic, and the timing of getting vaccines is simply coincidental." Understanding that rationale helped me see why scientists (and most doctors) could easily dismiss a single parent's concern. From the parent's prespective, it seems heartless, but from the scientific method point of view, one parent's assertion that a vaccine caused autism holds as much water as the assertion that eating Cheerios for breakfast contributed to my car accident because I didn't eat Cheerios until the day of the accident. (For the record, that was rhetorical; I did not eat Cheerios nor have a car accident recently. hahaha)
But so many parents tell the same story, "vaccines caused my kid's autism." Are *they* all crazy? I don't think so.
What's going on, then? I have some hair-brained theories. There is certainly more autism these days than there used to be. Some of it's probably due to better diagnoses, better understanding of the autism spectrum. I have a particular bias when it comes to the chemicals in our environment, homes and food supply. Fact is, we're poisoning ourselves. BPA in our canned food, antibiotics in all of our animal products, all kinds of petroleum-based nonsense in our body care and yes, even food. The FDA has taken a safe-until-proven-dangerous approach when it comes to Big Business products. (Which is particularly annoying when you consider that they have a send-in-the-SWAT-team-approach for things like raw milk.) Who's to say that the sheer load of these chemicals isn't contributing to autism, whether it be after birth, in the womb, or by genetically altering parents before they conceive? That's not a particularly radical idea, considering things I've read about other areas of medicine and genetics. It's particularly hard to study, though, when you're talking about a toxic load that *everyone* is exposed to. Just an idea, a random thought, if you will.
Offit's book briefly alluded to the fact that genetic mutations do occur (although he asserts they only happen before conception or in utero, and not after birth - I haven't done enough research to understand all that). In fact, it was shown by research that many children who exhibited seizure disorders "after vaccines" had somehow developed a "sodium-channel" defect, meaning that their brains didn't handle sodium like it should. The research somehow showed that it had nothing to do with vaccines (wish I had the time to pick all this research apart, but maybe in another life). But a sodium-channel defect is a genetic defect, meaning the genes had to be changed by some vector at some time.
Here's another way to put it (my crazy theory): what if autism was a symptom of multiple conditions? Take a runny nose. It can be due to allergies (food, chemical or respiratory), the common cold, influenza, because the nose just sustained trauma (like bumping into something or getting hit). A runny nose is a symptom of many conditions. Also back pain - pulled muscle, stress, spasming muscle, after effects of working out or other exertion, fibromyalgia, arthritis, slipped disc, you name it. What if autism is a neurological symptom of multiple conditions. It could be solely genetic (although very few things are *solely* genes), or environmental (due to pesticides or vaccines). Most likely it is a combination: a genetically prone individual who experiences environmental conditions that bring out the "symptom" of autism.
I wish I had time to link all the stuff I mentioned in this post. For the sake of Getting Things Done, I'm going to post as-is. Hopefully I'll come back later and do the linking.
Thanks for reading!
Mainstream medicine would tell you that vaccines have been 100%, totally and completely cleared. No evidence, no chance, no way.
The anti-vaccine camp would have you believe that there are high-level conspiracies as well as low-level; well-crafted and transparent; evil men and women making selfish decisions and brazenly risking the well-being of children for profit, power and the sheer pleasure of it. And if they're Jenny McCarthy, they drop the f-bomb whenever possible.
I believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle, although I still have no earthly idea what it might be.
I'm not going to talk about my brother; as the scientific method is known to assert, one story, or "anecdote," doesn't prove or disprove anything. But there are an awful lot of anecdotes out there. The science says that any situation can have myriad factors in play - the only way to know if a thing might be true or false is to look at it in a large population, over time, taking into consideration factors that are already known to have an influence.
I have to admit that I was surprised at how much research has been done on vaccine safety. I can't speak to the objectivity of it, but there is a huge amount of it. Much more than I'm sure existed when I was first considering the decision 18 years ago. Interestingly the issues have changed somewhat, but the intensity of feeling against vaccines by the anti crowd is stronger.
Offit spent more time on the history of the anti-vaccine movement than I thought he might have. And a long history it is. When the smallpox vaccine first came out over 100 years ago in England, folks thought their children would become stupid like cows, or grow horns. Of course, today we think that's silly. But do parents have the right to be suspicious of potentially life-saving medical treatments for their children? That's an issue I'll cover in another post. Point is, parents did not respond well to patronizing "just trust me" back then, and they often don't today.
Let's move on from general suspicions to parents that have specific concerns about *their* child. So, the parents who believe that their children are autistic because of the vaccines they received, believe so against scientific reason. Are the crazy? Science would say "it could have been any of many, many 'triggers,' or they could have been genetically on-track to become autistic, and the timing of getting vaccines is simply coincidental." Understanding that rationale helped me see why scientists (and most doctors) could easily dismiss a single parent's concern. From the parent's prespective, it seems heartless, but from the scientific method point of view, one parent's assertion that a vaccine caused autism holds as much water as the assertion that eating Cheerios for breakfast contributed to my car accident because I didn't eat Cheerios until the day of the accident. (For the record, that was rhetorical; I did not eat Cheerios nor have a car accident recently. hahaha)
But so many parents tell the same story, "vaccines caused my kid's autism." Are *they* all crazy? I don't think so.
What's going on, then? I have some hair-brained theories. There is certainly more autism these days than there used to be. Some of it's probably due to better diagnoses, better understanding of the autism spectrum. I have a particular bias when it comes to the chemicals in our environment, homes and food supply. Fact is, we're poisoning ourselves. BPA in our canned food, antibiotics in all of our animal products, all kinds of petroleum-based nonsense in our body care and yes, even food. The FDA has taken a safe-until-proven-dangerous approach when it comes to Big Business products. (Which is particularly annoying when you consider that they have a send-in-the-SWAT-team-approach for things like raw milk.) Who's to say that the sheer load of these chemicals isn't contributing to autism, whether it be after birth, in the womb, or by genetically altering parents before they conceive? That's not a particularly radical idea, considering things I've read about other areas of medicine and genetics. It's particularly hard to study, though, when you're talking about a toxic load that *everyone* is exposed to. Just an idea, a random thought, if you will.
Offit's book briefly alluded to the fact that genetic mutations do occur (although he asserts they only happen before conception or in utero, and not after birth - I haven't done enough research to understand all that). In fact, it was shown by research that many children who exhibited seizure disorders "after vaccines" had somehow developed a "sodium-channel" defect, meaning that their brains didn't handle sodium like it should. The research somehow showed that it had nothing to do with vaccines (wish I had the time to pick all this research apart, but maybe in another life). But a sodium-channel defect is a genetic defect, meaning the genes had to be changed by some vector at some time.
Here's another way to put it (my crazy theory): what if autism was a symptom of multiple conditions? Take a runny nose. It can be due to allergies (food, chemical or respiratory), the common cold, influenza, because the nose just sustained trauma (like bumping into something or getting hit). A runny nose is a symptom of many conditions. Also back pain - pulled muscle, stress, spasming muscle, after effects of working out or other exertion, fibromyalgia, arthritis, slipped disc, you name it. What if autism is a neurological symptom of multiple conditions. It could be solely genetic (although very few things are *solely* genes), or environmental (due to pesticides or vaccines). Most likely it is a combination: a genetically prone individual who experiences environmental conditions that bring out the "symptom" of autism.
I wish I had time to link all the stuff I mentioned in this post. For the sake of Getting Things Done, I'm going to post as-is. Hopefully I'll come back later and do the linking.
Thanks for reading!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Vaccines, part 1
I recently finished reading the book Deadly Choices, by Paul Offit, a pro-vaccine book. When I saw the library get it in, I decided it was time to revisit the vaccine discussion, and this time from the "other side."
It was well-written, quite readable, cited in extensive detail, and strikingly convincing. If I didn't already have a firmly-held bias, I might have been swayed. Haha
The author is pretty much "the expert" on vaccines these days. He comes from an honorable intent: as a child, he spent a summer recovering from clubfoot surgery in a hospital wing full of kids in iron lungs. The suffering of children touched his heart, and he vowed to spend his life protecting them from infectious diseases.
But then he says things like, "babies could theoretically respond [immunologically] to about 100,000 vaccines at one time." (p. 174) Head-spinning, I know.
I took some time this afternoon to let my thoughts percolate and chose these topics to respond to:
I'll cover each of these in a separate post. And I want to finish them up so I can get the vaccine book out of my head and make room for other things, like work, getting over this blasted cold, dishes, laundry, other books and summer.
It was well-written, quite readable, cited in extensive detail, and strikingly convincing. If I didn't already have a firmly-held bias, I might have been swayed. Haha
The author is pretty much "the expert" on vaccines these days. He comes from an honorable intent: as a child, he spent a summer recovering from clubfoot surgery in a hospital wing full of kids in iron lungs. The suffering of children touched his heart, and he vowed to spend his life protecting them from infectious diseases.
But then he says things like, "babies could theoretically respond [immunologically] to about 100,000 vaccines at one time." (p. 174) Head-spinning, I know.
I took some time this afternoon to let my thoughts percolate and chose these topics to respond to:
- autism
- what "load" of vaccine and/or natural disease can babies handle
- parents' liberty to choose, and
- how we treat one another in debates
I'll cover each of these in a separate post. And I want to finish them up so I can get the vaccine book out of my head and make room for other things, like work, getting over this blasted cold, dishes, laundry, other books and summer.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
"The Parenting Pyramid"
The Parenting Pyramid by Arbinger Institute
It's only 8 pages. Go download it and read it.
http://www.arbinger.com/downloads/parent...
You won't regret it.
View all my reviews.
My review
rating: 5 of 5 starsIt's only 8 pages. Go download it and read it.
http://www.arbinger.com/downloads/parent...
You won't regret it.
View all my reviews.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
SiCKO the movie
I am still trying to figure out why people either love or hate Michael Moore. In fact, "love or hate" is probably an understatement. Perhaps "worship or want to decapitate" would be closer to the truth. I can only remember watching SiCKO, but I think I must have watched some of his early tv stuff.
I have to admit, he cracks me up, he's an incredibly talented story teller, and he asks legitimate questions. And I'm a bit of a "stick it to the man" type, especially if it's a big-corporation, rich "man," so I allow myself to get sucked into his narratives.
Anyway, SiCKO left me completely electrified. I was riveted. I laughed and cried and shook my head. And I even remembered to take it all with a grain of salt. But, if things are even marginally as true as he portrays, then it's intolerable.
Mostly, it's gotten me thinking about my views on the role of government. The movie made several valid points:
So would "socialized medicine" be so evil? I mean, people are all about slamming anything communist- or socialist-sounding, but the fact is, we already have universal primary and secondary education, and the majority of Americans would never dream of privatizing that. I think the reason is it's what we're accustomed to. We're creatures of habit; we don't like change very much.
But what really keeps going through my mind is the idea that neither privatized nor government run programs, be it education or medicine or manufacturing, are immune to corruption, nor inherently evil. It's the people who run things that are susceptible to corruption and poor judgment. We are all well aware of the fact that CEOs make lousy decisions. These days, it's tempting to believe that capatalism doesn't even pretend to look out for those who need it. Socialism at least tries.
Who's to say that universal medicine is a more flawed idea than privatized? Of course it's simplistic and trite to suggest that a nation the size of the United States of America could make a switch from private to universal medicine in less than a generation, much less agree to actually do it or how. But it's equally obvious that folks getting denied care or coverage they deserve by insurance companies whose executives and administrators make obscene salaries is, well, sicko.
Have I been brainwashed? What do you think?
I have to admit, he cracks me up, he's an incredibly talented story teller, and he asks legitimate questions. And I'm a bit of a "stick it to the man" type, especially if it's a big-corporation, rich "man," so I allow myself to get sucked into his narratives.
Anyway, SiCKO left me completely electrified. I was riveted. I laughed and cried and shook my head. And I even remembered to take it all with a grain of salt. But, if things are even marginally as true as he portrays, then it's intolerable.
Mostly, it's gotten me thinking about my views on the role of government. The movie made several valid points:
- we are the only Western industrialized country to not offer universal health care
- our longevity, infant mortality rate and other health indexes stink (to put it nicely)
- we have universal "public" education, and locally (not federally) public libraries, police and fire departments
So would "socialized medicine" be so evil? I mean, people are all about slamming anything communist- or socialist-sounding, but the fact is, we already have universal primary and secondary education, and the majority of Americans would never dream of privatizing that. I think the reason is it's what we're accustomed to. We're creatures of habit; we don't like change very much.
But what really keeps going through my mind is the idea that neither privatized nor government run programs, be it education or medicine or manufacturing, are immune to corruption, nor inherently evil. It's the people who run things that are susceptible to corruption and poor judgment. We are all well aware of the fact that CEOs make lousy decisions. These days, it's tempting to believe that capatalism doesn't even pretend to look out for those who need it. Socialism at least tries.
Who's to say that universal medicine is a more flawed idea than privatized? Of course it's simplistic and trite to suggest that a nation the size of the United States of America could make a switch from private to universal medicine in less than a generation, much less agree to actually do it or how. But it's equally obvious that folks getting denied care or coverage they deserve by insurance companies whose executives and administrators make obscene salaries is, well, sicko.
Have I been brainwashed? What do you think?
"Twinkie, Deconstructed" review
Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats by Steve EttlingerMy review
rating: 5 of 5 starsOh My Gosh. You have to read this book! It's written in an upbeat, humorously informational style. Did you ever love to watch those segments on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood about how crayons were made? I love that stuff. This book takes the Twinkie, as the iconic favorite junk food in America, and researches where each ingredient comes from. It's not meant to shock, but it does.
Do you know that the iron that fortifies white flour comes from the bottom of a vat of acid in a sheet-metal extruding factory?
Or that there is an *industry* dedicated to egg-cracking?
Do you know which ingredients are mined? Refined? Created in a laboratory?
Do you think you'd be surprised to learn how much our author was *not* able to learn due to "proprietary" secretiveness?
His intentions are good. His kid once asked him, "Daddy, what's polysorbate 60?" And he didn't know. So he set to find out.
Every factory he visited was gleaming, clean, high-tech and impressive. Mind you, these are the ones that agreed to let a journalist in. The ones that churn out salmonella-tainted peanut butter "product" are the ones we should probably we wondering about.
Read on, if you dare!
(Logan Library has this book.)
View all my reviews.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Gardening as Peaceful Sedition
Farmer George Plants a Nation by Peggy ThomasMy review
rating: 4 of 5 starsI love how sometimes "cluster reading" several books at the same time seems so serendipitous. While reading this book, I was also reading Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life by Jenna Woginrich, where in she describes gardening as "peaceful sedition." Well, isn't that was George Washington was doing as he "planted less and less tobacco so he did not have to ship it to England. Instead he grew more and more wheat to sell to other colonists.... Soon Mount Vernon was like a little village." (p. 12)
And I'm also re-reading Food Not Lawns which is allll about gardening as peaceful sedition. Why do I romanticize the idea of rebellion? It just seems to fun!
But on the other hand, sometimes a little "civil disobedience" is called for. Isn't that what the Revolutionary War was all about!?
View all my reviews.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
"Plenty" review
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa SmithMy review
rating: 4 of 5 starsInteresting story, written by 2 freelance writers, interspersed with great essays on the history of food. Some favorite quotes:
A study in the UK showed that the amount of time people now spend driving to the supermarket, looking for parking, and wandering the lengthy aisles in search of a frozen pizza or pre-mixed salad is nearly equal to that spent preparing food from scratch 20 years ago.
Despite eating more than ever before, our culture may be the only one in human history to value food to little. From the African scrublands to the Australian deserts, nomads who collected food daily and never stored it considered sharing food to be the ultimate form of wealth. Among traditional Northwest people, a “poor” person was someone who never troubled to catch his own salmon, but was instead content to eat food produced b others. 158-62
Today is it more efficient for the UK to maintain the $330 million trade from New Zealand for apples, onions, dairy and sheep rather than to produce it in the UK. 221
I had expected the 100- mile experiment to be a platform to think about many things, among them a long list of bummers from climate change to the failure of whole generations to learn how to recognize edible mushrooms. What I could see around the table now was a less tangible consideration: a sense of adventure…. We need to find new ways to live into the future. We can start anytime; we can live them here and now. 222
View all my reviews.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
"Green This!" reviews
Green This! Volume 1: Greening Your Cleaning by Deirdre ImusMy review
rating: 5 of 5 starsWith this last pregnancy, my "mild" chemical sensitivity was kicked up to "totally annoying." I can't be around perfume, bleach, bathroom and kitchen cleaners, etc. Nor can I use anti-persperant, but that's another story. This book talks about how dangerous all those cleaners are, not just for people who are bothered by them, but for all people, especially our young children. She gives practical suggestions, which are few, because you really don't need all that much to keep a clean house. And yes, she is married to Don Imus.
View all my reviews.
Greening Your Baby and Child Care: Volume 2 in the Green This! Series by Deirdre ImusMy review
rating: 2 of 5 starsJust flipped through this highly anticipated follow-up to Greening Your Cleaning. Already highly disappointed. She's actually suggesting that organic baby formula in a glass baby bottle might be safer and superior to "contaminated" breastmilk. Then she refers mothers who might still choose the frightening avenue of breastfeeding in today's polluted world to La Leche League. If she had read anything about toxins and breastmilk by LLL, she would have learned that even mothers with serious concerns about pollutants in their breastmilk are better off breastfeeding!
I don't know if I have faith in anything else in the book, but I'll read it anyway.
*****************
Deirdre knows her chemicals and environmental toxins, but I would not say she practices natural living or natural parenting. That surprised me for some reason.
Things I liked or agreed with:
wooden toys rather than plastic for babies
the difference between sunblock (zinc or titanium dioxide) and sunscreen (chemically absorbs UV rays)
natural pet care ideas
she has a website called dienviro.com which will consult for free with you about the safety of your kids' school facilities and playground
eat organically when possible
avoid household cleaners, carpeting, petroleum products when possible
always ask questions about ingredients and procedures
advocate for change in your community
What I didn't agree with:
she recommends soy milk over dairy, even organic dairy, citing that even "clean" milk may have too much estrogen in it. Soy is arguably less healthy than dairy. And she doesn't even mention raw milk.
she tells pregnant moms to choose a "green hospital" for her birth, talks about midwives and doulas, and doesn't even mention the option of home! Can't get much "greener" than a homebirth! lol
in the same vein, she talks about green cribs and baby bedding, and doesn't mention co-sleeping as a lifestyle choice.
she chose "green" disposable diapers to cloth because services tend to use "heavy duty toxins" to clean their diapers, and washing them herself was overwhelming.
she spends a lot of time talking about the ins and outs of safe vaccinating, and does not mention or give credence to the option of not vaccinating.... ?
oh, and colic is supposed to get better if you stop eating broccoli! what an old wives' tale!
NO INDEX. That's a huge thing for me. 'Nuff said.
And since you made it this far, I might as well mention something that only began to bother me after I became disillusioned with this book. Her first book, when it was first published, said on the front, "the bestselling Green This! Series." That's some confident marketing, to claim a book is part of a bestselling series when the first book is brand new!
There is a lot of good information in this book, but you have to practice what she preaches and ask yourself lots of questions to decide what you take and what you leave behind.
View all my reviews.
Monday, March 9, 2009
"buried in Treasure" review
Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding by David F. TolinMy review
rating: 4 of 5 starsSo far, so good. I can say that because I'm not a hoarder! And the better news is that I'm finally getting some insight as to why I can't stay on top of clutter.
***************
I found the first part (the why) better than the how-to. There are any number of how-to organize books out there with better and worse instructions on how to go through your things and sort them.
The why of clutter is much more interesting, and a neglected discussion. I found for me, the qualities that contribute to clutter are: over-active ambitions (I think I can accomplish more than I really have time/energy for), inappropriate emotional attachment to items (write about it, figure it out, then chuck it or treat the item with respect), and plain old ADD. I semi-seriously wondered over the years of I could have ADD, but now I'm sure of it. I don't intent to "seek treatment" for it, but to know that's why I function the way I do is so enlightening! I can be more realistic with myself and gentler, too.
This book would be really helpful for loved ones of "hoarders" or "cluttery people." It is compassionately written and has several side-bars for family members and friends. Overall a really good book.
View all my reviews.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
"Healthy at 100" review
Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World's Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples by John RobbinsMy review
rating: 5 of 5 starsEnjoyable reading, solid research, good end-notes, great book.
I like how he put Weston Price in perspective. Either people revere him or discredit him. Robbins acknowledges that he made great observations, but had rather limited exposure to the peoples he visited, so it's not completely solid "science." Dr Price's suggestions are great ideas, but should be balanced with other great ideas. Use what works for you.
The chapter that blew me away was "Breaking Free from the Cultural Trance, or the real news on this planet." The real news is that love makes all the difference. His information on wealth distribution, what that tells you about a culture's values, and the effects on health were staggering to me. Of course, it makes sense now.
"The larger the gap between rich and poor, the less health will prevail." p. 265
What that means is that in a culture where the rich are *much* richer than the poor, that means that having wealth is a more valued trait than sharing wealth. It also means that the rich hold onto their wealth (generally speaking, I mean we all know of at least one generous rich person), which means that the poor have to work all that harder for the very basics (or give up and try to subsist on welfare), which means they have very little time for relationships (and then all the evils that occur from fragile or falling apart families will follow), which means that health suffers greatly.
No matter how "wealthy" or "poor" a nation, the greater the gap between rich and poor, the poorer health is in general. The smaller the gap between rich and poor, the better the health generally: for rich and poor. Huge implications. (Do I sound like a socialist? I don't think government has the duty to "fix" this; after all, it's a reflection on the people and their values, so government's not gonna change that. It's what we teach and value in our homes that filters up to results like this.)
Bhutan, which admittedly has its problems, has actually instituted Gross National Happiness as a measure of national prosperity, rather than Gross Domestic Product. Revolutionary! It may sound fru-fru, idealistic and a little hippy-ish, but it means healthier people. Happiness and love really do make a considerable difference.
A funny image just came to mind. Once science begins to acknowledge the effects of love, can you image a roomful of scientists trying to decide how to "control" for "love" in a study on health? They'll try it, I'm sure.
I won't go on right now. Terrific book.
View all my reviews.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
"How to Make Books" review
How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-Kind Book by Esther K. SmithMy review
rating: 3 of 5 starsTerrific layout, clean design.... But no new stuff. Unless the idea of using linoleum as cover board is "new." I was expecting more and exciting beyond Japanese stab-binding, accordion and dos-se-do. I was hoping for stuff like this and this, and this. Well, maybe not that last one. But isn't that music terrific!?
I felt that the material in this book was already available in books like Cover To Cover: Creative Techniques For Making Beautiful Books, Journals & Albums, Handmade Books And Cards, Making Books That Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist, And Turn: Books for Kids to Make, and More Making Books by Hand: Exploring Miniature Books, Alternative Structures, and Found Objects, which are all available at my library. The fresh design and layout of the material made for an enjoyable read, but I don't know if I'd buy it.
View all my reviews.
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