Funny signs

Okiage dolls

There are some amazing pictures at  Kimonoboy's blog.
He explains:

"The Japanese word Okiage is divided into two parts: 1. oki, placing something and 2. age, building up or layering.

Okiage dolls were created by covering a thick layer of paper, which had been cut into the shape of a historic or legendary figure, with cotton padding then overlaying the design with brightly colored silk fabrics. The last step was for the craftsman to hand paint the doll's face in lovely detail. The end result was the finished upright Okiage doll representing a vibrant and dramatis personae, dressed in colorful high-quality silk fabrics with a three-dimensional appearance." (keep reading)

The picture is from Four Seasons in Japan: "Padded pictures of hina dolls, kabuki actors and characters from fairy tales used to be made in Mizusawa.

I wish I could see them because the pictures doesn't show the details.

Monsanto: 2 millions protesters vs 71 US senators protection

Even Chuck Grassley the Senator who went after psychiatrists who were making millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry without reporting ? Drs Melissa P. DelBello, Charles Nemeroff, Alan F. Schatzberg and Joe Biederman were the most know (read here).

What I didn't know is that:

"According to a recent report from the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), ten of the 15 Congressmen that Monsanto helped fund won their seats, including Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina and Chuck Grassley of Iowa." (here)

I just wonder what Senator Grassley eats.

On May, 25 there was the March against Monsanto and I believe you heard nothing about it. It was not at the mainstream media.
The independent media reported the event where 2 millions marched against Monsanto around the world.
This is a very good news and it is quite an encouragement to keep fighting against patented seeds that are altering the food in many ways.

"We have to keep the momentum going that we have achieved with the March Against Monsanto. Don’t let it end on May 25, 2013.  The only way to defeat Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry is by spreading information far and wide.
We clearly cannot rely on the mainstream media to do this, as evidenced above.  So we must use social media, alternative media, and word of mouth." (read the call for action here)

I found the banner above at one social media.

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi's speech "No Justice, No Peace"

Dahlia Wasfi is an Iraqi-American physician and peace activist. Born inn 1971 in New York to a Jewish-American mother and Muslim Iraqi father, Dr. Wasfi spent part of her early childhood living in Iraq.
Visit her site here.

"We have an obligation to every last victim of this illegal aggression because all of this carnage has been done in our name. Since World War II, 90% of the casualties of war are unarmed civilians. 1/3 of them children. Our victims have done nothing to us. From Palestine to Afghanistan to Iraq to Somalia to wherever our next target may be, their murders are not collateral damage, they are the nature of modern warfare. They don't hate us because of our freedoms. They hate us because every day we are funding and committing crimes against humanity. The so-called "war on terror" is a cover for our military aggression to gain control of the resources of western Asia.

This is sending the poor of this country to kill the poor of those Muslim countries. This is trading blood for oil. This is genocide, and to most of the world, we are the terrorists. In these times, remaining silent on our responsibility to the world and its future is criminal. And in light of our complicity in the supreme crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ongoing violations of the U.N. Charter in International Law, how dare any American criticize the actions of legitimate resistance to illegal occupation.

Our so-called enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, our other colonies around the world, and our inner cities here at home, are struggling against the oppressive hand of empire, demanding respect for their humanity. They are labeled insurgents or terrorists for resisting rape and pillage by the white establishment, but they are our brothers and sisters in the struggle for justice. The civilians at the other end of our weapons don't have a choice, but American soldiers have choices, and while there may have been some doubt 5 years ago, today we know the truth. Our soldiers don't sacrifice for duty-honor-country, they sacrifice for Kellogg Brown & Root.

They don't fight for America, they fight for their lives and their buddies beside them, because we put them in a war zone. They're not defending our freedoms, they're laying the foundation for 14 permanent military bases to defend the freedoms of Exxon Mobil and British Petroleum.

They're not establishing democracy, they're establishing the basis for an economic occupation to continue after the military occupation has ended. Iraqi society today, thanks to American "help" is defined by house raids, death squads, check-points, detentions, curfews, blood in the streets, and constant violence. We must dare to speak out in support of the Iraqi people, who resist and endure the horrific existence we brought upon them through our bloodthirsty imperial crusade. We must dare to speak out in support of those American war-resisters, the real military heroes, who uphold their oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, including those terrorist cells in Washington DC more commonly known as the Legislative, Executive & Judicial branches.

"If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress"

Frederick Douglass said

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughinging the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both ... but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Every one of us, every one of us must keep demanding, keep fighting, keep thundering, keep plowing, keep speaking, keep struggling until justice is served. NO justice, NO peace."

Real video of Dr. Dahlia Wasfi speech on 2012.
There is a version that uses the speech showing shocking images but as the person, or organization who used the speech and edited the images didn't sign I don't consider it a reliable source.
If we are fighting unethical people we have to be very careful and not jump into the same mud.

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Aww! Puppy's activities are so funny!

But... NO! is the word s/he has to be told if you want your dog to behave and prevent the destruction of your furniture, carpet, shoes, and so on.

It's heartbreaking but it has to be done for his own sake and for a peaceful environment.

My puppy is finally giving up biting my hands, feet and some objects. He seems to know what are his toys and when he gets something he runs to a hidden place or the area he plays with his toys. I laugh inside but... "NO! Drop it"..  he drops.

I had a three months dog once but I didn't know how to teach him so the doctor who gave him to me asked me if I wanted to have the dog that was at his clinic. I accepted. It was like winning a prize for she is a real lady and very healthy for a dog that is 15 years-old and was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. I don't have any funny stories to tell because she does everything right.

Picture: I came across with this site and I don't know what came into me that I got Waldek Dabrowski's picture, runned to this editor and... it appeared here. I hope he doesn't come after me: "NO!"

Ethics: definition, causes and consequences

Obama speech interrupted by Medea Benjamin: she raised all the real issues...

... while Obama talked about nothing. The president has become a kind of spoke person.but Obama lacks the skills. He should take lessons with Ari Fleischer who was capable of letting you know that you were going on a trip to hell in such a way that you would believe you were taking a cruise to Caribbean islands.

The heckler is Medea Benjamin founder of of the antiwar group Code Pink:
Excerpt:

Medea Benjamin: "Can you tell the Muslims people that their lives are as precious as our lives?"
Medea Benjamin: "Can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA?"
Medea Benjamin: "Can you stop the signature strikes that are killing people on the basis of suspicious activities?"
Obama (cynically): "We're addressing that ma'dam."
Medea Benjamin: "Will you apologize to the thousand of Muslims that you have killed?"
Medea Benjamin: "Will you compensate the innocent family victims?"

Take a look at Obama's expressions while Medea Benjamin keep asking. cynicism is the word that describes it.

Watch the video and notice how Obama treats Medea Benjamin: as if she was a "young lady" - he used this expression - that don't deserve to be listened even when he claims the opposite.
And the clap people all part of show , are there to help silence any voice.
I wonder if real people where there. I would like to count the boos.

He prepared himself to read this speech written by another person and the young lady want to spoil it all?
Poor president! People don't show respect for authorities. (this is sarcasm, always better to highlight)
They only have the prepared speech full of rhetorical tactics, lies and that says nothing other than declare that they are on power and will keep doing whatever they want whether people like it or not.

When someone appears speaking from the heart and raising the real issues... they don't know how to deal with the situation because they don't want any dialog with people.

Medea Benjamin

Next time bring the crowd to help Medea! I only fear the number of arrests.

Jean Charles de Menezes: always on the heart of Brazilians

I'm Brazilian and it aches. Justice?

"Just resting my eyes" by Karen Baker

I loved this doll and felt like sharing. Karen Baker has numerous great works.

I feel peaceful when I look at this picture that I even forget to pay attention on the craftsmanship. I could  talk about many things like how the time seems to... no. I'll just look and  feel.

"The Soldier Myth" by Joe Glenton: a must-see

I've just discovered Joe Glenton at... BBC? Astonishing but he was being interviewed by Peter Sackur at HardTalk.
I went to his blog and just started watching this first video of the series "The Soldier Myth".
Joe was put in jail because he refused to go back to war, wrote a book debunking the idea of soldiers defending their countries when they are defending imperialism instead. He is involved in many anti-war activities.

I'll gather more information, watch the videos and write about it later. See you!

One of the soldiers Joe talks in the video.

Did Angelina Jolie really had prophylactic mastectomies? Profiting from disease mongering

We all have heard that Angelina Jolie did two mastectomies and as many strange stories are being told to people it made some of those who are constantly reading the independent media, sites that raise awareness on the mainstream media lies and alternative sources claim for evidences when there is profit involved.

What is behind it all? Money, profit from fear that medicine is doing repeatedly with the help of the mainstream media and celebrities.

Disease Awareness Campaigns has more to do with taking money from people than improving their health.
At the British parliament review "The Influence of Pharmaceutical Industry" there is a topic dedicated to these campaigns at page 69.

The cancer industry makes billions of dollars using the most diabolical weapons. Take a look at this article from NaturalNews and be aware that if Angelina Jolie did mastectomies she was fooled.
Don't be another one!

Conventional medicine openly admits to confusion over BRCA1 gene
Saturday, May 18, 2013 by: Jonathan Landsman

Excerpt::

Don't remove your breasts until you read this "NCI disclaimer"...

Many of us have heard the conventional talking points that refer to an "87% higher risk for breast cancer" - if one tests positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation. But, I'm here to tell you, that this is a complete fabrication of the medical truth.

I'll be honest - when I read this statement by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) - I nearly fell off my chair. Even if you test positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation - your risk of getting breast cancer may still be caused by other factors.

In other words, the BRCA1 gene may not really be the cause of breast cancer.

Read for yourself what the National Cancer Institute says about BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations...

"It is important to note, however, that most research related to BRCA1 and BRCA2 has been done on large families with many individuals affected by cancer. Estimates of breast and ovarian cancer risk associated with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations have been calculated from studies of these families. Because family members share a proportion of their genes and, often, their environment, it is possible that the large number of cancer cases seen in these families may be due in part to other genetic or environmental factors. Therefore, risk estimates that are based on families with many affected members may not accurately reflect the levels of risk for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers in the general population. In addition, no data are available from long-term studies of the general population comparing cancer risk in women who have harmful BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations with women who do not have such mutations. Therefore, the percentages given above are estimates that may change as more data become available."

I hope you understand the magnitude of what you've just read. The NCI has openly admitted that your risk for breast cancer stems from a wide variety of "genetic or environmental factors".

Simply put, the NCI really doesn't know (scientifically) how much of any risk factor causes cancer - including the presence of a BRCA1 mutation.

If you have any doubt about what you just read ... check it out yourself - at the National Cancer Institute website link: www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/BRCA

How the conventional cancer industry profits from your ignorance

The cancer industry would like you to believe that you are a victim of your genes with very little power to control your own health.

Let's be clear, we are not victims of our genes. Even conventional science admits that our environment is a major risk factor for developing cancer. Our lifestyle has everything to do with the health (and expression) of our genes.

In fact, the research is so strong that they will do everything in their power to suppress this information and focus on disseminating fraudulent propaganda that makes you feel helpless and disempowered.

They know if the truth came out they would be out of business.
__________________________

There is a very good article by NaturalNews' editor Mark Adams about the consequences of Angelina Jolie
crusade on promoting prophylactic mastectomies: here.

Puppy and older dog sleeping

Two generations meeting in their dreams. Am I lucky or what?

Millenium Bookball by George W. Hart

This is the first design done by George W. Hart, a mathematical sculptor designer, for the sculpture

 "Millennium Bookball". I loved the sculpture but I feel like doing this paper design.

I'll have to understand George's explanations about geometric forms. Wish me luck!

"In my sculpture, I seek to create forms that are enriched by an underlying mathematical depth. While viewers sometimes describe my works as spheres, I see them not as spheres, but on spheres. One would not say that oil painters traditionally paint rectangles, but they paint on rectangles. So, I see the sphere as a canvas to sculpt upon. From the design perspective, a sphere presents a significant challenge, because there is no convenient edge to the canvas. The form must meet with itself "around the back" in a coherent manner—and every side is the back."

George W. Hart

Leonard Roy Frank: vegan, avid reader, religious, nonviolent resistance believer; therefore, schizophrenic paranoid

Leonard Roy Frank was sentenced to mental institutions because he wanted to be a better person.
As it happens to many after reading people like Gandhi, Jung, Thoreau, Arnold Toynbee, Emerson, and  other authors  changes the understanding of the world and of the self.

It happened to me and I was also seen  as a kind of threat especially because I didn't have money. I loved art, literature, cultural events, theater... and my most of my friends liked the same. Under dictatorship we were seen as "commies" and psychiatry helped putting in mental institutions some of those who were fighting the system.

 I see many youngsters trying to find themselves by reading and being connected to a group of people who are searching for another kind of life other than waking up in the morning, going to work and coming back home to have supper, watch TV and going to sleep, getting married, children... and repeating the same till death.

 He changed and his family thought that his behavior was a sign of a mental illness.

After going to psychiatrists he was labelled and treated - electroshocks, insulin coma - as a mentally ill.
This is his story and you can also watch  this video where he explains what was his "disease".
Reading, liking poetry. questioning and being sympathetic of nonviolent resistance are symptoms of mental illness, don't you agree? And, of course, having a beard and being vegetarian are also indicators of a severe mental condition.
Unfortunately Leonard's incarceration and tortures are still happening. We all know how physicians helped the nazy regime.

Metomorphosis, Interrupted

Leonard Roy Frank gets waylaid on the path to self-discovery

A revolution took place in Cuba, the Cold War was in full throttle, the Eisenhower era was drawing to a close, and I moved to San Francisco where I would soon find myself in a hellish world of imprisonment and torture. It was 1959.

Born in Brooklyn 27 years earlier, I had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. After a two-year hitch in the Army, I managed and sold real estate in New York City and southern Florida for several years. Despite a poor record, I continued working in real estate in San Francisco.

A few months into my new job, things began to change for me, more internally, at least at first, than externally. Like so many of my generation, I was highly conventional in thought and lifestyle, and my goal in life was material success—I was a Fifties Yuppie. But I began to discover a new world within myself, and the mundane world, seemed, comparatively speaking, drab and unfulfilling. I lost interest in my job and, not surprisingly, soon lost the job itself. Thereafter, I spent long hours reading and reflecting. (emphasis added)

The book that influenced me most at that time was An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas K. Gandhi. I adopted for myself his principles of nonviolent resistance, his interest in religion, and his practice of vegetarianism. In that book and other of his writings, Gandhi referred to the works that had helped shape his life. I was soon reading the Bhagavad Gita, the New Testament, Henry David Thoreau's “Essay on Civil Disobedience,” Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You, and the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In keeping with the subtitle of Gandhi's autobiography, I started my own experimenting. This led to a complete reevaluation of my previously held values. Towards this end I broadened my reading to include, among many others, the Old Testament, Lao-tzu (Way of Life), William James (Varieties of Religious Experience), Henri Bergson (Two Sources of Religion and Morality), Joseph Campbell (Hero with a Thousand Faces), and the writings of Abraham Lincoln, Carl Jung, Arnold Toynbee, and Abraham Heschel.

During this exciting, wonder-filled time, the learning I acquired advanced my self-awareness and my understanding of the world. During this period, however, my parents visited me several times and became concerned with the changes they perceived in me. That I was living on my meager savings and was not “gainfully employed” upset them. My newfound spiritually centered beliefs and vegetarian practices challenged them in ways they couldn't handle. We were at loggerheads: if one side was right, the other had to be wrong; neither side was willing to compromise. (emphasis added)

The situation seemed to call for a parting of the ways, at least for a time. But my parents weren't willing to back off. They attributed the rift between us to my having a mental disorder. The changes I regarded as positive they regarded as symptomatic of “mental illness.” They urged me to consult a psychiatrist. I had done some reading in psychology but, while finding a number of valuable ideas, had rejected its overall approach as being too narrow. Psychotherapy was not for me. (emphasis added)

Over a period of more than two years, the struggle between my parents and me intensified. Eventually, because I wouldn't see a psychiatrist, my parents decided to force the psychiatrists on me. The way that was and still is being done in our society is by commitment, a euphemism for psychiatric incarceration. I was locked up at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco on October 17, 1962.

While the world’s attention was focused on the Cuban Missile Crisis and the possibility of nuclear war, two physicians in a San Francisco hospital were focused on me and the possibility of my being mentally ill. They decided I was and gave me what they called a tentative diagnosis of schizophrenic reaction. The case history section of the Certificate of Medical Examiners they signed reads in full as follows: “Reportedly has been showing progressive personality changes over past 2 or 3 years. Grew withdrawn and asocial, couldn't or wouldn't work. Grew a beard, ate only vegetarian food and lived life of a beatnik—to a certain extent.” (emphasis added)

On October 20 I was sent to Napa State Hospital and from there, on December 15, to Twin Pines Hospital in a suburb south of San Francisco, where I remained through the first week of June 1963. Early on, I was diagnosed as a “paranoid schizophrenic,” a label reserved not only for serial killers but for almost anyone else in a mental institution who refuses to knuckle under to psychiatric authority. Scattered through my medical records, 143 pages of which I obtained in 1974, were the “symptoms” and observations which, according to psychiatric ideology, supported the diagnosis. These included, and I quote, condescending superior smile; vegetarian food idiosyncrasies; apathetic, flat affect; has a big black bushy beard and needs a haircut, he is very sloppy in appearance because of his beard; refuses to shave or to accept inoculations or medication; patient declined to comment on whether or not he thought he was a mentally ill person; no insight; impaired judgment; stilted, brief replies, often declines to answer, or comment; autistic; suspicious; delusions of superiority; paranoid delusions; bizarre behavior; seclusive; withdrawn, evasive and uncooperative and delusional; negativism; passively resistive; piercing eyes and religious preoccupations. (emphasis added)

Soon after being imprisoned, psychiatrists tried to gain my consent to shock treatment—at first electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) but after I was transferred to Twin Pines, “combined insulin coma-convulsive treatment.” When I was “extremely resistive” to undergoing the latter procedure, the hospital filed for a court order authorizing force in administering the procedure. At the end of the seven-paragraph letter to the court, the treating psychiatrist wrote, “In my professional opinion, this man is suffering from a Schizophrenic Reaction, Paranoid Type, Chronic, Severe, but it is felt he should have the benefit of an adequate course of treatment to see if this illness can be helped. In view of the extremes to which the patient carries his beliefs it is felt that the need of hospitalization and treatment under court order is a necessity as he is dangerous to himself and others under these circumstances.”

On January 10, 1963, after a hearing at which I was present, the Superior Court of California in San Mateo County “ordered [me] committed to Twin Pines Hospital.” The next day, the series began; there were in all 50 insulin coma treatments (ICT) and 35 electroconvulsive treatments (ECT).

Combined insulin coma-convulsive treatment was routinely administered to “schizophrenics” in the U.S. from the late 1930s through the mid-1960s. ECT was sometimes applied while the subject was in the coma phase of the ICT; sometimes the procedures were administered on separate days. Individual insulin sessions lasted from four to five hours. Large doses of injected insulin reduced the blood's sugar content triggering a physiological crisis manifested in the subject by blood pressure, breathing, heart, pulse, and temperature irregularities; flushing and pallor; incontinence and vomiting; moans and screams (referred to in the professional literature as “noisy excitement”); hunger (“hunger excitement”); sobbing, salivation, and sweating; restlessness; shaking and spasms, and sometimes convulsions. (emphasis added)

The crisis intensified as the subject, after several hours, went into a coma. Brain-cell destruction occurred when the blood was unable to provide the sugar essential to the brain's survival; the sugar-starved brain then began feeding on itself for nourishment. The hour-long coma phase of the procedure ended with the administration of carbohydrates (glucose and sugar) by mouth, injection or stomach tube.
If the subject could not be restored to consciousness by this method, he or she went into what was called “prolonged coma,” which resulted in even more severe brain damage and sometimes death. According to the United States Public Health Service Shock Therapy Survey (October 1941), 122 state hospitals reported an insulin coma treatment mortality rate of 4.9 percent—121 deaths among 2,457 cases.1

After gaining my freedom, I tried to find out how psychiatrists justified their use of ICT. One of the clearest statements I uncovered came from Manfred Sakel, the Austrian psychiatrist who introduced the insulin method in 1933 and, after arriving in the United States a few years later, became its most active promoter. He “claimed to be a direct descendent of the twelfth-century rabbi, physician, and philosopher Moses Maimonides.”2

In a popular book on the state of psychiatry published in 1942, Dr. Sakel was quoted as follows: “With chronic schizophrenics, as with confirmed criminals, we can’t hope for reform. Here the faulty pattern of functioning is irrevocably entrenched. Hence we must use more drastic measures to silence the dysfunctioning [brain] cells and so liberate the activity of the normal cells. This time we must kill the too vocal dysfunctioning cells. But can we do this without killing normal cells also? Can we select the cells we wish to destroy? I think we can.” (italics in original).3

I didn't see it that way. Combined insulin coma-convulsive treatment was an attempt to break my will, to force me back to an earlier phase of my spiritual and intellectual development. It was also the most devastating, painful and humiliating experience of my life.

Afterwards, I felt that every part of me was less than it had been. Except for memory traces—some titles of the many books I had read, for example— my memory for the three preceding years was gone. The wipe-out in my mind was like a path cut by an eraser across a heavily chalked blackboard. I did not know that John F. Kennedy was president although he had been elected two and a half years earlier. There were also big chunks of memory loss for experiences and events spanning my entire life; my high school and college education was effectively destroyed. I came to believe that shock treatment was a brainwashing method.

Some years later, I found corroboration for this opinion in a professional journal describing ECT's effect on patients by two psychiatrist-proponents of the procedure: “Their minds are like clean slates upon which we can write.”4

Aside from being a flat-out atrocity, the use of combined insulin coma-convulsive treatment necessarily involved the violation of certain human rights; some are proclaimed in the Bill of Rights, all are cherished in a free society.

1. Freedom from cruel and unusual punishment (Eighth Amendment). If insulin coma treatment is not a torture, nothing is. Readers of the professional literature, however, receive barely a hint of this reality. The barbaric aspects of the procedure, if mentioned at all, are glossed over in understatement and euphemism; for example, one psychiatrist cautioned against allowing new insulin patients to see other patients further along in their treatment, thus saving them “the trauma of sudden introduction to the sight of patients in different stages of coma—a sight which is not very pleasant to an unaccustomed eye.”5

I recall the horror of coming out of the last coma: severe hunger pains, perspiration, overwhelming fear and disorientation, alternating phases of unconsciousness and consciousness, strangers hovering over my strapped-down body (none of whom I recognized although I had been thrown in with them months before), being punctured with needles, drinking heavily-sugared orange juice ravenously, and later being held up by one or two attendants in a shower where the filth was washed away. Brain damage caused by the treatments destroyed my memory of what the previous sessions had been like.

However, I remember what happened a week or two after completing my series when, having returned for lunch from “occupational therapy,” I was sitting in the day room which was separated from the insulin-treatment area by a thick metal door. Suddenly I heard an indescribable, other-worldly scream. The metal door had been left slightly ajar and one of the new patients, a young musician, was undergoing insulin coma down the corridor on the other side of that door, and he was expressing his pain. Almost immediately an attendant shut the door tight, but the scream, now muffled, lingered on for another few seconds. I don't recall any of my own screams; I will never forget his.

2. Freedom of thought (implicit in the First Amendment). The words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., ring as true today as when he first wrote them in 1860: “The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.”6 The brain-damaging force of insulin coma is second only to the lobotomy operation; it impedes the ability to think, to create, and to generate ideas. Every ICT survivor experiences impaired thinking and knows what it means to lose memories, words (you have the idea but can't call to mind the word to fit it) and trains of thought not just once in a while, but repeatedly hour after hour, day after day. I have keenly felt these losses.

3. Freedom of religion (First Amendment). As noted above, the phrase “religious preoccupations” was among the symptoms recorded in my psychiatric records. One of these preoccupations concerned my beard, which the staff at both Napa State and Twin Pines Hospitals had been urging me, without success, to remove. In the midst of the series—after I had undergone 14 insulin comas and 17 electroshocks—the treating psychiatrist wrote my father, “In the last week Leonard was seen by the local rabbi, Rabbi Rosen, who spent a considerable period of time with him discussing the removal of his beard. I felt it was desirable to have the rabbi go over it with him, as Leonard seems to attach a great deal of religious significance to the beard. The rabbi was unable to change Leonard's thinking in this matter.”

At this point, the San Francisco psychiatrist who had been advising my father was brought in to interview me. After noting in the Report of Consultant that I was “essentially as paranoid as ever,” he recommended that “during one of the comas his beard should be removed as a therapeutic device to provoke anxiety and make some change in his body image. Consultation should be obtained from the TP attorney as to the civil rights issues—but I doubt that these are crucial. The therapeutic effort is worth it—inasmuch that he can always grow another.” On March 11, the Doctor's Orders, signed “REJ,” read: “Pts beard to be shaved off & to be given hair cut — observe very carefully today & tonite for any unpredictable behavior re suicidal or elopement [escape].” The same psychiatrist wrote my father ten days later, “Leonard's beard was removed this last week which caused him no great amount of distress....” The shock therapy in combination with the beard-shaving therapy “worked.” I was soon shaving on my own. I have no direct memory of the struggle over my beard or of even having had a beard during this period.

4. Right to be let alone. In a 1928 Supreme Court decision, Olmstead v. United States, Associate Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote, “The makers of our Constitution... conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” Without having been proved guilty of violating anyone else's rights, I had been deprived of my freedom and made to undergo corporal punishment disguised as medical treatment. In the truest sense of the term, I was minding my own business, exercising my right to be let alone. I thought that in the United States this right was protected; I was wrong. That was 40 years ago, but it's still happening as literally millions of innocent people every year are being locked up, for short and long periods of time, in psychiatric facilities where their rights are trampled on and they are subjected to psychiatric treatment against their will or without their fully informed consent.

Aside from the serious and permanent memory loss, other effects of those nearly eight months of confinement and forced treatment include a general slowing of my thought processes and a loss of drive and stamina. But by psychiatric standards, I am still “essentially as paranoid as ever.” I still have my “vegetarian food idiosyncracies.” I have regrown my “big black [now graying] bushy beard.” And, what is more, I have maintained all my “religious preoccupations.”
Notes

1. Franklin G. Ebaugh, “A Review of the Drastic Shock Therapies in the Treatment of the Psychoses,” Annals of Internal Medicine, March 1943, p. 294.
2. Alex Beam, Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Mental Hospital (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), p. 78.
3. Marie Beynon Ray, Doctors of the Mind: The Story of Psychiatry (Boston: Little, Brown, 1942), p. 250.
4. Cyril J.C. Kennedy and David Anchel, “Regressive Electric-Shock in Schizophrenics Refractory to Other Shock Therapies,” Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. 22, 1948, p. 318.
5. Alexander Gralnick, “Psychotherapeutic and Interpersonal Aspects of Insulin Treatment,” Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. 18, 1944, p. 187.
6. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast Table (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1931 [1860]), ch. 5.

Biographical Note

After being released from Twin Pines Hospital in 1963, Leonard Roy Frank spent the next six years in study, reeducating himself.

Since the early 1970s he has been active in the psychiatric survivors movement, first as a staff member of Madness Network News (1972) and then as the co-founder of the Network Against Psychiatric Assault (1974)—both dedicated to ending abuses in the psychiatric system.

He is the editor of The History of Shock Treatment (1978) and several books of quotations: Influencing Minds: A Reader in Quotations (1995), Random House Webster's Quotationary (1998), Random House Webster's Wit & Humor Quotationary (2000), and Freedom: Quotes and Passages from the World's Greatest Freethinkers (2003). [See that one in our Attitude Catalog, p. 45. — ed.

Last month, Random House released five more of his books: Inspiration, Love, Money, Wisdom, and Wit, each with the subtitle The Greatest Things Ever Said.

He has resided in San Francisco since 1959 and may be reached at lfrank@igc.org.

Thin is out, skinny is in: Is there space for curves in the fashion world?

Reigniting the discussion is worthless.
I just don't understand why do these people that work in the fashion world are that powerful that impose one and only one possibility of
beauty: being skin and bones.
Finding clothes above a certain size is impossible.

We were obsessed with being thin but now it is not enough. Models  have died because of anorexia - a imposed disease that has nothing to do with the real one - women suffers dismenorreia and numerous problems. Many have cocaine so that they can have "energy" to work.
According to some specialists our brain is made of 2/3 of fat.
It is already part of collective conscience that thin is the only possible way and even architecture and designs are projected for thin people.

People are eager to starve to be skinny or are  encouraged to follow a diet that miraculously will make them lose a huge amount of weight in two, three, five days...

We all know these arguments. I've been waiting for a change since... ever. When will models and top models will show a beautiful and healthy body?

It affects teenagers and most people feel bad about their bodies even when they are thin.

And I'm sorry! Skinny is ugly. Men and women. But this is me.

British Summer installation program

We still can post images at Facebook without paying. I found this one but I didn't pay the R$ 0,49 to send a message to a friend of mine. :)

Aww! Yorkshire's puppies: how to teach a puppy to respect older dog

I still didn't had time to take a nice picture of my puppy and the older but he looks like the first one on the right.

If you did read the other two posts about my puppy you know I'm teaching the puppy. I had noticed that my older dog was asking for my intervention to stop the puppy to approach her in the childish way.

Yesterday I did read that, yes, it is the human who has to teach the dog. 

Everything.

Today she has gone back to her favorite place at the kitchen and the puppy understands "NO!".

Since he arrived with forty five days things are not as hard as I thought.

My older dog is fifteen years-old and she is very healthy thou she has cancer. She is asymptomatic now and she only had a surgery in 2008 to remove the right mammals and another one in 2011 to remove a tumor on her head.

I didn't want any treatment because I've seen many people and dogs get worse or die do these interventions.

Of course the puppy is here because I fear so much losing her that I wanted to have a dog who had any kind of connection to her and learned a little from her wisdom.

Things are fine now and I'm happy now. I was regretting having bring the puppy because things were not fine  but now I know what I have to do.

A special place: Virtlantis where dissent is mandatory

This is another picture of the house I had at Second Life. At the fence I hanged pictures of people I admire: from left to right: Vanessa Redgrave as Julia; a graffiti of the poet Rimbaud; Italy's map (my grandma was Italian), and, the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

I love Vichen's graffiti that uses the leaves as the hair and you can watch it at this post.

I stopped going to Second Life because this Windows's version makes it impossible to use sound and talking to the friends I met - people from many countries - is the reason I go to this virtual place.
I have bonds with some people that are hard to explain for we have a connection that is not like a friendship in real life.
I'll try to make it come clear in another post.

A place I love to go is Virtlantis. We can practice English by talking about different topics that vary according to our mood - from our favorite dishes to "the meaning of life" which is the proposal when we feel out of topic: "Let's discuss the meaning of life." and the silence is broken with laughs.

There are numerous different activities in English and in other languages. I started teaching Portuguese and it was a great experience. I wanna do it again because it is very empowering and I never thought that someone would want to learn my language.

I tried learning Polish and Arab. It is so hard! I'm still learning English and French that are the two languages I've been studying since... ever for English and from high school for French. I lived in Paris for one years and, yes, they treat you well if you speak the language.
I rather dedicate my time trying to master these two languages I have the privilege of speaking.

It all for free. You don't have to pay for these activities at Virtlantis or at other language practicing community.

What I like about Virtlantis is the freedom of speech. Yes, a place we can dissent, better, a place where dissent is incentivated, as a matter of fact dissent is mandatory.
Of course you can tell the official version but usually you'll receive information from people who have connections with the independents who are trying hard to tell what is really going on.

Rambling is also encouraged as long as you leave time for the others. I abused my ramblings prerogatives a lot... Shame!

"Yes! I love Van Gogh but I think that people put too much emphasys on his biography in a way that it overshadows his work... and the movie that is seen by... so I read a book about him and a psychoanalyst said that the pattern of the wall paper indicated he was emotionally unstable.  This is crazy!... and since we are talking about Van Gogh who was born in The Netherlands and spent a brief period of time in Paris... France? Oh! Sarkozy was a disaster and...'

My problem is that I think aloud. I start making connections and... I have to thank those great people who were patience with me.

Facebook charging for messages: the old mail way is back

Only today I sent a message to a friend of mine that I found at Facebook and came across with the possibility of paying R$ 0,59 so that the message should be sent to my friend's inbox.

I didn't pay not only because it sounds crazy for me but also because I do not use money at the internet.
A quick search led me to some interesting reactions being one of them:

"I, for one, think that $100 to get Zuck to read one of my messages is a bargain. "

This is from Rocky Agrawal's post. I left two comments:

Ana Luiza 8 minutes ago
The author thinks that if he pays celebrities will read his messages.
I don't know if he is naive or... dunno.
Funny.

And the second:

Ana Luiza • 11 minutes ago −
I payed $ 100,00 to send a message to Bill Gates and he didn't answer me.
This is outrageous! If one pays for the message the recipient should be obliged to answer.
"Thank you for your message."
That would do.
lol

What makes me sad is that I was going to send "Happy Mother's Days" greetings to numerous mons that are not on my friends list.
It would cost me a fortune!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY and MERRY CHRISTMAS (it's just around the corner and if we send both at Facebook it would save us some money. Maybe we should create a kind of "greeting-all-dates special message. Valentines day, profession day, children day, new year's eve... everything under the same message.)
What about using the mail again? It would be great receiving cards and letters we can hold in our hands.
Quite revolutionary.

I remember reading "It is free and always will be." somewhere. I cannot recall where was that.

Winter in Pakistan and Leading US Companies in the country

Snow fall in Valley Kalaams, Pakistan.What do you know about Pakistanis?

English and Urdu are the official languagse so it's very easy to talk to them since many start learning at a very early age.

Of course the middle class has more access to schools that teach English.

I spoke to some Pakistanis over the internet and they are very bright. Most of those I knew were under thirty years-old.

They dream about having a good job in a multinational company.

Leading US Companies in Pakistan

Abbott Laboratories

AES Pakistan

American Consultants

American President Lines

Bank of America

Brink's Pakistan

Caltex Oil Pakistan

Captain-PQ Chemical Industries

Carrier Service Company

Citibank

The Coca-Cola Export Corporation

Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan

Cornpak

Crescent Greenwood

Cyanamid Pakistan

Dawood Hercules Chemicals

DHL Pakistan

DuPont Far East Inc.

Eli Lilly Scientific Office

First International Investment Bank

The General Tyre & Rubber Company of Pakistan

Gillette Pakistan

IBM Semea

Intel Pakistan

International Laboratories

Johnson & Johnson Pakistan

Karachi International Container Terminal

Karam Ceramics

KFC

McDonalds

Merck Sharp & Dohme Pakistan

Morgan Stanley Pakistan Investment Fund

Muller & Phipps Pakistan

New Hampshire Insurance Company

Occidental Pakistan

Pakistan Mobile Communications

Parke, Davis & Company

Pepsi-Cola Pakistan

Pfizer Laboratories

Pizza Hut

Premier Tobacco Industries

Procter & Gamble Pakistan

Rafhan Maize Products Company

Sheraton Middle East Management Corp.

Singer Pakistan

Smith Kline Becham Pakistan

Squibb Pakistan

3M Pakistan

Union Texas Pakistan

Upjohn Pakistan,

Surprised?  Money, it is all about money.

Not only Monsanto's patented seeds: genetically modified shrimps and salmons are on our table

Genetically modified food became the paradigm and not the exception. I just did watch a video that claims that 70% of the food we have are GMOs.

Take a look at this list of GMO ingredients we are having. It's appalling!
What about the meat and seafood?

"...and that the consumers will not know since there is no requirement that GMO materials be labeled as such."

claims marine microbiologist Stephen Newman at his blog. He advocates that there is no danger whatsoever in genetically modifying seafood:

"As a scientist with  a strong applied research lean, I follow many issues that I believe may eventually prove to have some economic benefits.  As a graduate student working with a pathogen of salmon, the tools I had for genetic manipulation consisted of chemicals that were known to act on genetic material in a known manner and then the use of simple tools for finding the alterations in genetic material that I was looking for. Today this technology is archaic. We can introduce genes into animals where we want them to be and can control how they work, turning them on and off when we want to. Plants have been the target of much of this work in the last few years and genetically modified plants (GMO) are in widespread use and widely consumed by most Americans and have been for some time with no indications of harm (although admittedly this is a complex issue and assuming that there is no potential for problems is naïve.. we need to be vigilant).  

About 15 years ago, I was involved in a project where we were looking at the potential for adding a gene to cultured shrimp that would make the animal resistant to a virus that was decimating farmed shrimp globally. The end result of the project was the knowledge that genes could be stably transferred into shrimp. This important first step has led the way for others to genetically alter shrimp in any number of ways. The question I kept posing to my employer was who will buy these shrimp? His answer was that the need for farmers to have an animal resistant to a virus with the potential for a large economic impact will drive it and that the consumers will not know since there is no requirement that GMO materials be labeled as such. With fish, there have been many successful reports of genetic manipulation in a number of species including multiple species of carp, salmonids including rainbow trout, Tilapia and others and we are now appearing to be on the verge of the commercialization of a genetically engineered Atlantic salmon ." (emphasis added)

I find it very strange that Dr. Newman want to hide from consumers that these seafoods are GMO if he is so sure that it causes no harm. He should produces real good evidences proving the benefits of GMO seafood.

I don't eat salmon for I found it very strange that something that was so hard to find and highly expensive became omnipresent and cheap.
I did a search and there it was: GMOs.

No thank you. I only like fish and never been very fond of seafood.

The problem is huge and it requires a lot of work to have food that is not genetically modified.
There will be a march against Monsanto on May, 25th.
This is a good news but the fight is just beginning. For those who want to eat the good and old fashion way when food tasted good and were more connected to nature it will require a lot of marches.
I have already suffered a lot of alteration in my body due to GMO food and medicines.
We can't have back our "pure race" - equating the expression with human beings who would not have suffered any alteration due to GMO food and medicines plus environmental changes.

But it would be great to stop here.

There are scientists working to stop GMO food for thirty years. Dr. Phillip Bereano is one of them.
Dr. Philip Bereano is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and an engaged activist concerning genetically modified (GM) foods. His academic work is within Technology and Public Policy, and over the past 30 year
Read one of his articles and watch the video.

The scientists who are working with genetic modification for companies has a very interesting attitude: they say those who are against it are crazy and are part of a conspiracy theory group.
It's part of their work behaving like this.
Integrity in science! Is it too much to ask?

Help! Puppy waking human mom in the middle of the night

I'm sleepy and tired. He did it again, of course, and woke me up "crying" in the middle of the night.

I'm exhausted because I have to take care of my older dog so that she feels secure that she'll not lose her kingdom.

Hard job!

I'm searching for techniques and just found this idea at a forum. I guess I'm gonna do it.

You guessed right if you thought that I didn't blog for the last three days because of my dogs. I'm also having my house repaired. I have three posts labeled as "draft" because I didn't have time to finish them.

Now I have to sleep... ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

"There is no such thing as consensus science" Michael Crichton

Excerpts from Michael Crichton's lecture about the lack of integrity in science:

Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy.

“I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity."

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
[Crichton gave a number of examples where the scientific consensus was completely wrong for many years.]
“… Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E = mc². Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.”

Source "Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture" by Michael Crichton on January 17, 2003
(read the entire lecture)

Rudyard Kipling's message to Eddie Vedder

 Eddie tripped and fell in Italy and elegantly stood up and kept going.


"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


Excerpts from the famous poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling who "was starved of love and attention and sent away by his parents; beaten and abused by his foster mother; and a failure at a public school which sought to develop qualities that were completely alien to Kipling. In later life the deaths of two of his children also affected Kipling deeply." (here)

Too busy saying "NO"" to puppy

My puppy wants to bite everything and I'm teaching him not to bite.

Most things he does I have to say "NO!".

It's hard to be a dog in a human environment he has already complained.

The picture is not him. It is Marcie Mae but he looks like her. He has more black hair and I'm having problems taking a good picture. You know, I have to take care of him and say "NO!" the most effective and not traumatic way.

It is so hard to be a human mom! But I'm enjoying every minute...

Shakespeare's "Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear": Juliet and models

ROMEO

"Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear,
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."



"Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear"

I was watching Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet and noticed the reference to the "Ethiope's ear". I did a little research and found out that this is a very famous metaphor.

No, I don't wanna discuss if Shakespeare was a racist or speculate any hidden intention in the phrase but I cannot help thinking that the Ethiop is like a frame, a support or a background that highlights the fairness and brightness of Juliet.

Nothing is said about the Ethiop.

This picture is a Pinterest under the title "Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear".
Again nothing is said about these black people since they are models. At the fashion kingdom nothing is said about most models and only those who are on top make a lot of money and has the right to have a personality and even share some ideas.

Very democratic, the fashion world treats caucasian, black, brunettes, yellow, brown all skin colors the same way.
But they have to be skinny, skins and bones, and never be tanned or they lose any possibility for a gig.
Do you see the model? I confess I don't. I look at all these stuffs all over the head and neck of the model and, as I live in Rio de Janeiro, carnival comes to my mind for I've been exposed to costumes since I was born. I've seen similar things in the school's of samba parades.

All the photoshop also disturbs me:.the ace of the model received a white light to enhance the bright of the jewel that is on the top right.
I wonder how this, and the other women at the page,  looks like and how are they doing, I would like to know about them but models are frames, supports or a background to the exhibition of creations that ironically are unwearable.
Do you watch the faces of models?  Can you name three models that are not on the top models's list?

If you want not to be watched you should consider being a model and nobody will notice you. Very good profession for those who are low profile.

Happy Workers Day!