Here You Are...Wondering...About Darkness And Light...Richard Avedon

Photographers explore darkness and light not just in terms of contrast for their images, but even more so in regards to the light and the dark side of life. Richard Avedon is one of the best and most famous. Here a wonderful nine part documentary - each video is about 9 to 10 minutes long.

If you don't have time for the documentary skip down to the tenth video which is a sampling of his photographs over the last several decades.

Here You Are...Wondering...About Neckties (not an actual line in Here You Are)

Meet Mat

Matt looks like a happy guy. He is a college student who writes a blog about...neckties! Every post is about neckties - one way or another. It's pretty funny and entertaining. He asked me to let my readers know about his blog, so, here you are! Father's Day is just around the corner - you may need a necktie and can buy one from him, too.

I liked the post showing the many ways one can alternatively make a necktie cake for those Dads who don't need any more ties for Father's Day, or the post about what your necktie color choice may communicate about you - whether you planned it or not. Check it out. There may be a few colors missing in your rainbow!

And, Matt - don't forget to tell all your readers about Here You Are :-). If you wrote: "Thanks for being my Dad. I wouldn't be here without you" in the front of the book, it, too, would make a great Father's Day Present. Maybe Amazon can still get it delivered by Sunday.

Here You Are...With The Air Smelling Sweet...

This line of Here You Are took me to the blog, "First Nerve", written by Avery Gilbert, a sensory psychologist whose specialty is olfaction. He is the author of "What The Nose Knows".

The post was about mysterious sweet smells appearing over Manhattan and other urban areas. Hmmm....not exactly what I meant in Here You Are.

Here You Are...Under The Big Blue Sky...(Frances Drost Music Video 2000)

Did you figure out my new project, yet? I am googling every line in my children's book Here You Are and let it take me all over the Internet. I am all excited where it will lead. Here is a woman with a beautiful voice singing about the union we often feel, just noticing that we all live under the same beautiful, big, blue sky.

Here You Are... Standing On The Ground

A new idea popped into my head...about how to write this Here You Are blog. If you have read the book you will get it right away, otherwise, well, you'll figure it out pretty quickly.

If the video doesn't play through go here to YouTube where it plays through. Cool piece of electric guitar music. And don't forget to send Nick some love in the comment box on YouTube if you like this piece!

Then Again, Maybe Be A 24/7 Vegetarian

Find out more at Meat.org.

How much would we suffer - really - becoming vegetarian? How much longer can we stick our heads in the sand about the way millions of animals are treated. When will we realize the simple connection between our happiness and health - and theirs?

The truth is hard to stomach and even harder to act on - except for children. It is a question of whether selfishness is stronger than compassion - as in all things.

Be A Weekday Vegetarian!

Here are a few basic statistics, and some good common sense advice...

Doctors And Attorneys In Court

We received this email from a friend today...

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts,
and are things people actually said in court, word for word,
taken down and now published by court reporters who had the
torment of staying calm and straight-faced while these
exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
__________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
_____ _______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his
                sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.
_______________ ____________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: getting laid
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney.
              Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
__________________________________________ __
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a
                deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?

WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________
...and the best for last:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you
                began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

GoodGuide

Finally...here it is!!! TADAAAA....the company I have often dreamt of starting in my wildest fantasies, while folding the laundry. 

A Berkeley Professor beat me to it! Those PhDs have the edge. He and his team did an amazing job - while I was sorting underwear and cooking brown rice... hey, I could'a been a contender! 


Well, having written a children's book isn't so bad either. The laundry definitely did NOT get done that year.

About Dara O'Rourke

Dr. Dara O'Rourke is a professor in the Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, and formerly a professor at MIT. He studies the environmental, social, and health impacts of global supply chains.

About GoodGuide


GoodGuide helps you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet.

I was ahead of the curve thirty years ago, carrying a little booklet with "good" and "bad" product lists everywhere I went.  I think it was from PETA and I kept adding my own extensive lists to it. Even then, shopping for my household full of babies and toddlers was akin to wild mushroom hunting, potentially lethal to my offspring as well as the planet. Overdramatic thinking? Not really, as it turns out.

But now, we can go to the "GoodGuide" and be a highly knowledgeable consumer - with PhD powers, really - rather than the "gullible moron", preferred by the big corporations, who believes everything he or she sees advertised (or omitted) on a box. 

No doubt, the consumer product corporations must be getting a little nervous by now, and may just hop to it in a great big hurry, if they haven't already started in that direction. I have been quite impressed recently with, for example, Target's selection of certified organic food items in spite of that label's watered down meaning. Now, pleasing the consumer will mean passing - not the FDA - but the GoodGuide ratings and whatever else one reads about on other such sites and clever blogs. Corporations - if they are smart - will increasingly need companies like BuzzLogic just to figure out who is saying what about them in order to manage all this enlightened consumer chatter. The buzzword of today is accountability. Everyone can still run, but can no longer hide.

While big battles are being fought at the government level about HOW to properly and legally lie to consumers about the ingredients in our products - we can now be our own FDA - by just checking our GoodGuide and similar sites. What makes the GoodGuide so outstanding is its logical and easy to understand rating system. To get even more involved, read the GoodGuide Blog for up to date topics in this field, affecting all of us every day. The Internet is flushing everybody out.

We used to have to rely on word of mouth - "snail mouth" - to spread the truth about what was going on regarding food production, animal abuse and carcinogenic chemicals in our direct surroundings. Usually there was one of us "odd" canaries in a family, sounding the alarm, yet easily brushed of as an impractical dreamer who would grow out of it. Now, defenders of monkeys, bunnies, farm animals, the earth, and babies,  jump for joy when all that information lives in colorful images and researchable facts on the Internet, and "word of mouth" means having your own blog read by thousands. The Internet deserves the Nobel Prize! You thought I was kidding :-)

What is presently happening to the Catholic Church - to name another massive entity - is going to happen to ALL large organizations that have benefited from, and have abusively exploited trusting souls - be that animals, children or unsuspecting adult populations. The food industry will be no exception, and the pharmaceutical industry is right in line. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free" - no doubt Jesus meant higher truths than this, yet the truth in general in all areas has a way to set us free - us from deceitful organizations, and them from having to live with such shameful secrets, that cannot even be talked about for decades, or listed on a box. Most of us today are in a fierce mood to throw out the good with the bad - since the bad has gotten way too bad. It's high time to reboot.

Destroying the planet, its animals, children and each other is easy when all our interactions are based on lies, not so easy when everyone knows what is going on. And - to be fair to the "evil" corporations - consumers need to own their part in all of this, as well. Constantly screaming for "more" and "cheaper", feeds this insane frenzy of lies, over-consumption and waste. 

The GoodGuide promises to become very powerful and may be in danger of getting corrupted over the next thirty years just like the FDA or the "organic" food label, but for now it seems independent and trustworthy.

In this jungle of questionable consumer items and the information gathering it requires, I am finding that, just like Michael Pollan in the Omnivore's Dilemma is encouraging us to have a relationship with the local farmer who is growing our food, I want to "know" the corporation I am buying from. I find myself "loyal" to "Bronner's Soap", for example, "Burt's Bee" products, and "Dr. Hauschka's" cosmetics,  because they pass my test and I don't feel lied to. I am starting to question "my thirty year relationship with Whole Foods" for all the less than ideal products showing up in their stores, but still love them for carrying Macrobiotic foods and many other high quality products that pass the toughest green tests. It is all about relationships, be it people, farmers, corporations or grocery stores.  GoodGuide has a lot of information about all the various corporations and businesses who make our products, so consumers can get to know the corporations they want to patronize.

As regular stores are adding the good stuff, and Whole Foods is adding some not so good - shopping is once again a lot of work in both places and the GoodGuide is a huge help. It used to be that you could relax and buy everything at Whole Foods, but that is no longer the case. Even though it is still my favorite store, the Super Target down the road with all its high quality products like Eden Foods and certified organic produce, is getting a good part of my Whole Foods dollars these days. Who would have thought? And - I am always on the lookout for the little guys - today's versions of Erewhon and Bread and Circus.

I could go on and on - for now let me just say - "Thank You" Dr. O'Rourke! I look forward to watching the GoodGuide grow ever more helpful and valuable. It's a powerful tool we have needed for a long time.

Carlos Santana and 7-Year-Old Lucciano Pizzichini

After all that serious medicine talk - something fun and amazing...in the music and kids department...

ImagineThisTV - The "Other" Reality TV

I heard about ImagineThisTV - "the best TV Show not yet on the air - " from my good friend Dwabha (Dr. Prabhavati) who, with our and many other people's help, has been nurturing Ramana's Garden in India for over a decade. Ramana's Garden is a magical place full of beautiful flowers: the children Dwabha rescues out of horrendous situation into a new life of love, play, and self reliance through an education program that takes the children through elementary and middle school and then, when many other organizations at this point abandon their charges, through high school or vocational training until they cannot only survive on their own as young adults, but become the teachers, doctors, electricians and business owners who inspire the succeeding age groups.


Ramana's Garden grows its own food and has several small businesses like a bakery and humane angora bunny rescue farm. Creativity and innovation are all part of this magical world. In co-operation with people and organizations in the West, many groups visit and work at Ramana's Garden throughout the year, be that eco-tourists through AFC, Gurumuk's Yoga students looking for service opportunities, or Western Youths who are sent through LeapNow to restore their spirits damaged by our Western ways.


Ramana's Garden depends on its visitors for survival. Without visitors who bring money and muscle soon this beautiful garden would not receive enough nourishment and the children's futures would be uncertain. In return each visitor is nurtured by the joyful hearts and ways of the children.


The present crisis facing Ramana's Garden is pollution of the water from the Gangha they have depended on for over a decade. 


Here is our dream - I imagine for Ramana's Garden to be able to operate out of the old Beatle's Ashram in Rishikesh. It is a much needed change as the children and their visitors are outgrowing their present surrounding in addition to the serious water situation. A beautiful and simple, yet large enough place, presently sitting empty and unused by the river Gangha, this old facility, with a little clean-up and re-energizing, would be perfect . The magic of the Beatels, which was Love, Love, Love...would continue to flourish in this most practical way of providing a place to grow and expand this haven for the children as well as provide a historic place for the caring annual visitors and volunteers, and hopefully attract many more.


And what a great TV episode this would be - to "restore" the old Beatles Ashram and open it to the joyful children claiming it.


You can support this dream by visiting here on ImagineThisTV and commenting on the suggested Episode "Saving The Lives Of Destitute Children In India".

Baby On Fire

A baby's brain - and legs - on fire...



And good old Mr Rogers, moving the heart of a senator, talking about Children's Television programming to the point of 20 million dollars...

Stuff

Moving throws you into the material world as you try to put your new home together. There is so much Stuff to deal with and you feel sillier and sillier as you attend to it all. It is easy to forget how much stuff there is when things just sit peacefully in their cupboards.

Donations are the key to success and thank goodness for Goodwill and the Salvation Army. Interestingly you cannot give any child-related items away anymore, like toys or even car seats, because of the new lead laws.

Every single item that ends up in children's hands now has to be guaranteed to be lead-free. This is good, of course. But - like all good things - it has its disadvantages. All those things in my household that are highly unlikely to be a lead problem could not go to places that distribute things to those who need it. Well - with the help of a friend I found takers myself. But - it was an interesting challenge.

Spaghetti Dog Secret

Well - in order to get this amazing dinner, which your kids are sure to blog about - you stick the uncooked noodles through an uncooked hotdog and then boil them together. But - you figured that out already, didn't you?

Spaghetti Dog

This is what can happen when fathers cook for their kids. My daughter-in-law's cousin - no doubt a genius - came up with this dinner. How did he get the spaghetti through the hot dog? This may be a patented idea. But I'll tell you in my next post.

Mondays's MeditationMom Moment - Ugly And Lovable

Q: What can I do about being a more lovable person?

MM: Be more lovable. There is nothing to do, just be more lovable.

Q: But I feel that I am fat and ugly and that on first impression already people decide I am unlovable.

MM: There are "fat and ugly" people who are very lovable and people are instantly drawn to them. Socrates was one of them. It is all a question of what occupies your thoughts. It is only thoughts that are fat and ugly. You get rid of fat (repetitive) and ugly (negative) thoughts against yourself and others and you will be free. Freedom is very attractive to everyone. Serenity, peace, compassion... all show up even on an ugly face. They are irresistible. Become irresistible.

Utah Our New Home

Here We Are

On The Way To Utah

Rain in Nevada driving to Utah

Moving To Utah

Our first week in Utah, I am pleasantly surprised by how nice people are here. It is a noticeable difference to California. People seem more relaxed, happy and genuinely friendly here. So many Moms with three to four children in tow in all the big grocery or department stores - the children all happily bouncing along and yet, well behaved. And the Moms - are SMILING!

We have had encounters with dozens of people this week - store clerks, government clerks, handymen, and many others - and all have this down to earth, relaxed, friendly and generous manner. I never imagined people could be happier than Californians.

Whale Wars

If your life has been boring and glum since Jack Bauer went into a coma, fear no more. You can get the same tension and stiff neck you treasure from watching 24, from watching "Whale Wars" on Animal Planet. The difference is that you can watch "Whale Wars" with your ten-year-old. It will make for spirited discussions, and might turn him into an Eco-Terrorist, so be forewarned.

As we were watching the first and second episode, and I was trying to explain the wisdom of doing things the legal way, the democratic way, and the way of least resistance - more like Greenpeace, - or Jesus and Buddha for that matter - the response I got was: "Legal or not, Mom, the other guys are KILLING innocent whales!"

It didn't help that Paul Watson had just explained that if you see someone kicking a puppy in the face, you don't just take pictures, report and wait for lawyers to deal with things, you save the puppy and deal with the attacker." Jack Bauer would be proud. But what would Jesus, and what would Obama do? As the Imam on 24 said to calm Jack: "We live in complicated times."

What Paul Watson and his team do is not - at least in episode one and two - life threatening to the whalers, and far from Jack Bauer's methods. They throw stink bombs the way we did in Middle School, jam the whaling ships' props, and do anything else annoying - and expensive to the whaling boats they can think of - to interfere with the bloody killing of the whales. It is often life threatening to his own crew, as they fight their lonely - and arguably - legal battles in the Southern Ocean - the toughest place for sailing on earth. It is almost always life saving (or at least buying a few more hours on earth) for the whales, though.

This makes for easy math for a ten-year-old.

Is Paul Watson a brave and compassionate hero, is he stupid, counter-productive, self-righteous, helping, or hurting the cause, or all of the above? That's for people who are over ten to decide.

The rest of us...are cheering for the whales.