Where's your wife?

Cancer Bitch recommends that you do not ask this question. She has asked it twice in the last 2 years and it was awkward in the first case. So why did she ask it again? She is a slow learner.

In spring or summer of 2007, she greeted one of her husband's co-workers at a fundraiser by asking where his wife was. He said, I don't know, and Cancer Bitch quickly understood that something was amiss. She asked her husband L, Why didn't you tell me? and he said he'd just found out himself. L is never the bearer of good gossip; he doesn't ask enough questions. The co-worker and wife are still separated.

At the Kol Nidre service at the hippie congregation, the rabbi asked everyone to introduce themselves to their neighbors. The man in front of her turned and they realized they knew one another. One of Cancer Bitch's pre-Prozac boyfriends (read: angst-ridden relationship) was friends with this man, M, and Cancer Bitch would always talk to the wife L when they ran into one another. Cancer Bitch remembered the wife describing how she photocopied her dissertation at her husband's office and sent out copies of the manuscript to agent after agent. Or was it publisher after publisher? And it was published. L sang in Hebrew and Yiddish and had red-frame glasses and a New York accent. Her husband told C Bitch: She passed away. Four months ago.

After services M said that a year ago she'd had a seizure while singing in California and they'd found out that she had lung cancer that had gone to her brain.
She returned early to Chicago so she could sing on Yom Kippur with the hippies. She died at home, her sons sniging to her till the end.

Cncer Bitch had not heard, obviously. The family took out a paid notice in the New York Times, but not in the local papers. There is too much cancer-dying these days. There was L above; and K's wife E, who also had lung cancer; and the wife of another old boyfriend, after five cancer-free years; and her friend P's cousin is dying of ovarian cancer. There are heart problems and neurological damage and it seems that absolutely everyone is getting dental implants. This is middle age and it is only the beginning of the body's decline. Cancer Bitch has finally begun calling herself middle aged. For years and years she'd considered her mother to be middle-aged, but now that her mother is 81, she has to face facts. Sunday in Evanston Cancer Bitch walked past a house on Chicago Avenue north of Dempster and as always, remembered the time in 1980 when she went there to see about renting a room, and the guy there said that a cute Southern girl with a great accent was there first and he couldn't resist. She told this to her husband who said loyally, You were a cute Southern girl. She thinks about the Southern girl every time she passes the house but Sunday was the first time the memory was accompanied by a strong swoop of sadness: the passage of time. She thought of herself in her early 20s with her whole life ahead of her. The sadness of losing that feeling of potential. She doesn't regret her choices, except her many hours of wasting time, but she is no longer young, no longer just becoming, that's the point. Yeah yeah, there was Grandma Moses who started painting late in life, but there was also Mary McMarthy who told Cancer Bitch (in an interview in Florida) that people in their sixties and older couldn't write novels any more. She was referring to herself.

C Bitch has a novel in a file cabinet in the other room and in her computer and needs to gear gear up to revise and rework it.

READ MORE - Where's your wife?

The Passive Cancer Patient

She said, Did you ask your oncologist what she thought about the calcifications?
I said, No, I forgot.
Then I thought better of it and thought maybe I had asked. I said, I think I did. I keep forgetting about it.
She said, It seems you either are at zero, not worrying at all, or way up here, thinking about dying. You need to be able to tolerate a 3, to do what you need to do.
She said, It takes energy for you to forget about it, because you're not really forgetting, it's in the back of your mind.
She told me how she went to four doctors who all said she didn't have cancer. The breast surgeon told her she was a hysterical female.
She waited a month or two and finally insisted on surgery and of course it was malignant.
She reported the doctor to the board of whatever, but there were no consequences.
The form the Breast Experts gave me in June and December and in June again said "calcifications that are probably benign." The radiologist in December said I could have an MRI if I wanted but warned me about false positives.
Now, she said cancer begins as calcifications, if it bothers you, you need to do something about it. She said, It's labor-intensive for them to read MRIs, that's why they don't like to do them. And: it's labor-intensive to do a biopsy using ultrasound and they don't make much profit from it. She said Fancy Hospital was on the TV news because they had a backlog of mammogram patients and they didn't have enough radiologists though they promised to get more.
A local TV station reported earlier this month that at Fancy Hospital, women have to wait between 8 months and a year to schedule a mammogram. ABC7 checked with six other hospitals in the area and all were able to schedule a mammogram within a few weeks.
Fancy says that there's a shortage of radiologists.
But it seems to be restricted to only one block in the city.
Calcifications can be malignant--they don't turn malignant, they can begin that way. "Probably benign" can mean that there's an 80-98 percent chance that they're benign. MSN reports: Please note that some specialists may prefer additional testing (breast MRI, biopsy, etc.) while others may be more conservative. A lot has to do with your personal or family breast health history.
I still think the calcifications are not cancerous. But I don't know for sure. I emailed my surgeon's nurse and asked for an MRI. She wrote back today and said that she sent over the order, that I should call the MRI division and make an appointment, that it would take a few days to get precertification, but that insurance might not pay for it.
Because it's elective, I suppose. But it's not like I'm doing it for vanity. And it's odd--usually the doctors prescribe extensive tests to CYA.
There's a blog written by The Assertive Cancer Patient.
This is not that.

READ MORE - The Passive Cancer Patient

Changing the Charter?

Larry Gilbert is a long time activist, investigative reporter
and good friend over the last 10 years. Larry recently just
wrote a quick blog for the other blog....we write for:
www.orangejuiceblog.com which is a high volume blog that was
developed by Art Pedroza.

At any rate, Larry wrote this interesting article regarding
whether or not his town of Mission Viejo should change from
a General Law City to a Charter City...much like that of
Newport Beach. For those who don't know the difference...
this might be an important understanding.

Larry's article:
September 24, 2009
www.orangejuiceblog.com

Should Mission Viejo switch from a General Law to a Charter
form of city government?

Posted by: Larry Gilbert : Category: Fresh Juice


At the Sept 21st meeting of the Mission Viejo city
council a council member asked the city attorney if
Charter Cities are immune from government raiding.
This was triggered by our general law form of
government and their discussion of the pending “taking”
of city funds to help the state government keep the
bill collectors at bay.

With that question comes a long list of financial
and legal questions that I will try to tackle with this
post. As there are 21 characteristics for comparison
I will limit this post to 8 of them which I feel
provide areas for discussion.

Before providing the list let me state that this
topic and comparison is generally not covered in the
media. Therefore let me state that “the essential
differences between the two types of cities is that
having a charter gives cities more local authority
over municipal affairs. Charter cities are able to
customize operations to meet the unique needs of the
community, while general law cities are dependent
on the state legislature for their power.”

Form of Government.

GENERAL LAW CITY. State law describes the city’s
form of government. For example, Government Code
Section 36501 authorizes general law cities be governed
by a city council of five members, a city clerk, a
city treasurer, a police chief, and any subordinate
officers or employees as required by law. City electors
may adopt ordinance which provides for a different
number of council members. Cal. Gov’t section 34871.
The Government Code also authorizes the “city manager”
form of government.

CHARTER CITY. Charter can provide any form of
government including the “strong mayor,” and “city
manager” forms.

Elections Generally
GENERAL LAW Municipal elections conducted in accordance
with the California Elections Code.

CHARTER CITY. Not bound by the California Elections
Code. May establish own election dates, rules and
procedures.

Public Funds for Candidates in Municipal Elections
GENERAL LAW CITY. No public officer shall expend and
no candidate shall accept public money for the purpose
of seeking elected office.

CHARTER CITY. Public financing of election campaigns
is lawful.

Vacancies and Termination of Office
GENERAL LAW. An office becomes vacant in several
instances including death, resignation, removal for
failure to perform official duties, electorate
irregularities, absence from meetings without permission,
and upon non-residency.

CHARTER CITY. May establish criteria for vacating
and terminating city offices so long as it does not
violate the state and federal constitutions.

Council Member Compensation
(and Expense Reimbursement)
GENERAL LAW. Salary-ceiling is set by city population
and salary increases set by state law except for
compensation established by city electors.

CHARTER CITY. May establish council members’ salaries.

Public Contracts
GENERAL LAW. Competitive bidding required for public
works contracts over $5,000. Such contracts must be
awarded to the lowest responsible bidder. If city
elects subject itself to uniform construction accounting
procedures, less formal procedures may be available for
contracts less than $100,000.

CHARTER CITY. Not required to comply with bidding
statutes provided the city charter or a city ordinance
exempts the city from such statutes, and the subject
matter of the bid constitutes a municipal affair.

Finance and Taxing Power
GENERAL LAW CITY. May impose the same kinds of taxes
and assessments as charter cities.

CHARTER CITY. Have the power to tax. Have broader
assessment powers than a general law city, as well as
taxation power as determined on a case-by-case basis.
May proceed under a general assessment law, or enact
local assessment laws and then elect to proceed under
the local law.

Zoning
GENERAL LAW CITY. Zoning ordinances must be consistent
with general plan.

CHARTER CITY. Zoning ordinances are not required
to be consistent with general plan unless the city
has adopted a consistency requirement by charter or
ordinance.

Gilbert comments. Changing your
form of government from General Law to a Charter City
is like taking your children to a candy store. By law
the compensation of city council members in general
law cities is capped to population. This became a big
issue in Mission Viejo as our council recently
awarded themselves a sizable increase in their monthly
stipend as covered previously. This alone opens
Pandora’s Box for our city where they would love to
create full time posts at $100,000 each.

It is worth pointing out that “all of California’s
10 most populous cities are charter cities” including
Anaheim and Santa Ana in Orange County. At last count
379 of our 463 cities are general law.
Some related issues include your choice of full time
v. part time council and mayor and the powers and
compensation he or she assumes.

i.e. “Relationship of Full-time Mayor and
Structure of Government
While it is true that California cities with a strong
mayor form of government have full-time mayors
(e.g., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fresno, Oakland),
it is also true that a city can have a full-time
mayor without having a strong mayor form of
government. The Cities of San Diego, San Jose, and
Long Beach have full-time mayors who operate under
the council-manager form of government.

Though there are variations within each of these
two basic structures of government, the fundamental
difference is whether or not the mayor serves as the
chief administrative officer of the city. In the
council-manager form of government, the mayor and
council establish policies and a professional, hired
city manager administers the policies. In the strong
mayor structure, the council establishes policy and
the mayor is the chief administrative officer of the
city.”

As indicated by the above details there is much to
consider before making this change at any city where
the initial election costs will surely exceed $250,000.

=======================*Winship Comments:
Special thanks to Larry Gilbert for a fantastic short
version article of CA City Government. Excellent!

Secondly, we have been tauting an Elected Mayor in
Newport Beach for 15 years. It came on the heals of
the passage of Term Limits...which we also supported
strongly. Now, we need to pass a Special Election
provision to the Newport Beach Charter...in the event
that any of our currently "selected but not elected"
City Council people decide to step down early....as
the last five have - to abridge the Charter process!
Changing the Charter simply requires - a vote of the
people and meeting the legal requirements of State Law.

READ MORE - Changing the Charter?

Does Newport Beach Want Successful Businesses?

Hello again...

Long time huh?

Nowadays, it takes lots to get me soo fired up that I cannot resist researching, formulating, and spouting off at the mouth (or at the keyboard.)

So here we go again, and forgive me if it feels rusty.

Chronic Tacos' plans denied.

Good topic to return to?

I've been following this little story for a while...and correct me if I understood this incorrectly...

• Chronic Tacos on the corner of Balboa and PCH wants to expand.
• They want to serve beer (which they later rescinded).
  
• They want big screen tvs
• They want a seating area for customers.
• They are very busy in the little spot they are in.

Ok. Here are the complaints, and again, please correct me if I understand this incorrectly...

• Chronic Tacos is too busy, so parking is difficult in front of it, or around it.
• The people that go to Chronic Tacos are lazy bums who throw their trash in the parking lot.
• The people that go to Chronic Tacos are young, and thus horny, and must throw their used condoms in the grass behind the restaurant (which by the way happened "near" another Chronic Tacos in a land far far away...)
• The people that go to Chronic Tacos are loud.
• The people that go to Chronic Tacos can't buy beer at the Liquor store next to it, at the Circle K on the corner, at the Pizza Joint next to it, at the Sushi Joint next to it, or at the bar on the corner, so they will HAVE to buy beer at Chronic Tacos, and thus create lots and lots of problems to the neighbors.
• They sticker their windows...but these are different types of stickers that are on the windows at the Donut shop, the scuba shop, the Coffee shop, and Circle K.

Are you kidding me?

According to the Daily Pilot article,

"Councilman Steve Rosansky scolded restaurant owner Dan Biello for litter in the shopping center parking lot outside the stand and the appearance of his storefront, which is covered in bright-colored stickers."

and Rosansky, as a HUGELY SUCCESSFUL FRANCHISE OWNER OF ONE TOGOS RESTAURANT, which then qualifies him as a restaurant expert who is able to judge a HUGELY SUCCESSFUL 28 MULTI-STATE RESTAURANT CHAIN, continues

"criticizing his (the owner of Chronic Tacos) attention to Newport Beach in comparison to Daniel's other 23 restaurants"

Now lets back up for a second...

If I told you about a restaurant that:

• Serves quality Mexican food fast
  
• Serves quality Mexican food cheap
  
• Has a seating area
• Has some big screen tvs
• Serves Beer
• Has Stickers on their windows
• Is hugely successful
• Has serious parking issues.
• Young people like to go to it.
  

What restaurant would you think about?

Need a hint?

Ok...it's owned by three surfing brothers.

Another?

Ok...there's one in Fashion Island.

Yup...Wahoos Fish Tacos.

CHRONIC TACOS WANTED TO OPEN UP THEIR VERSION OF WAHOOS FISH TACOS WHERE OTHER BUSINESSES HAVE OPENED AND FAILED.

This is the same Wahoos Fish Tacos that I've personally seen that same Councilman Rosansky at numerous times.

This is the same windowed stickered-hard to find parking in their sometimes littered parking lot-beer serving-big screen tv showing-taco serving-restaurant that Steve Rosansky goes to.

How much do you want to bet that if Wahoos tried to open up in that same location, there would be unanimous votes of support?

Then why no Chronic Tacos?

I still can't figure it out.

Now let's address the parking and trash issue in that plaza (I used to live right next to it...)

• That vacant location is now empty.
• That vacant location is large.
• That vacant location is OFTEN VACANT
• Business open and close in that OFTEN VACANT LOCATION.

So a HUGELY SUCCESSFUL restaurant, who will probably be there for many, many years, will contribute lots of sales tax revenue to the City, where you'd probably see Councilman Rosansky enjoying food very similar to Wahoos Fish Tacos, is not allowed to expand and improve the area?

A crappily run restaurant chain does not:

• Get named to the Daily Pilot's 103 most influential people list in Orange County. Twice.
  
• Have numerous and numerous locations in very, very conservative areas (Idaho?)
• Opens their doors to numerous charities to help raise money year after year. If the Newport Beach Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation trusts the owners of Chronic Tacos to help them raise dough...
• Wonderful reviews and writeups in numerous well trusted publications (here's one...)
• and donates food for very civic-related events.

In a down economy where Restaurants are closing down left and right, we punish a restaurant who wants to expand?

Instead, that crappy plaza will continue to have a large vacant spot, which will get repeatedly vandalized.

Small businesses which will not impact parking (?) will open and close there.

If the City wants to bitch about a dirty parking lot, talk to the owners of the NUMEROUS business who share the parking lot AND talk to the plaza operator.

Why hasn't the City gone after Jack in the Box or Circle K for the ugly dirty parking lot.

The City has backed itself into a corner now.

Nothing that resembles anything successful will be able to open up in that large vacant spot.

Nothing that requires people to drive to and park their cars to will be allowed to open there.

Nothing that caters to young (= loud, dirty, drunk, and horny) customers will be allowed to open there.

And if one does, I sure to hell hope Chronic Tacos sues the HELL out of Newport Beach.

See you at Wahoos soon Rosansky!

READ MORE - Does Newport Beach Want Successful Businesses?

Old School...New School.....Again?

We had a cool fog blow through yesterday morning. It
created a lot of wet on our deck and we had to get the
shop vac out to clear out all the puddles. We still
have our SC flag up from last Saturday's debacle. We
keep the battle flag up for the whole week after we
lose a game...especially one that we should have won.
Anyway, we will get back to that later.....

So, the kids are all back in school by now. Homer
Bludau, our old City Manager....has left the building
and the good Dave Kiff....is finding his way around
Homer's old office. Dave we guess is going to have
a tough time for a few months...getting adjusted to
"not being available". Cause, you know....that's what
important people do......become "unavailable"....not
so accessible....."just leave a message"....stuff like
that.

We will tell this story for Dave....just to let him
know that all the great things he did before he was
the "Big Poobah" were pretty good things to do.

Many years ago when the Showtime Lakers..with Magic,
Worthy and Cooper had won everything....they traded
someone we liked, who we can't remember now. We were
quite incensed however and immediately called Jerry
West on the phone. "Hey, this is Ron Winship...from
Parker- Longbow in Newport Beach and we want to talk
with Jerry West immediately!". The secretary was of
course quite professional and simply said: "I will
make sure that Mr. West gets your message!".

Well, thinking we would never hear from him ever...
how shocked were we to have Mr. Jerry West personally
call us back 20 minutes later. "Mr. Clutch" wanted
to know what our concerns were and when he found out
....we were simply "Superfans"...he chatted with us
quite openly for over 40 minutes all about The Lakers,
what perspective trades he was considering, what work
ethic he expected from each member of the Laker team
and a variety of other basketball issues. Needless
to remark, we are now and will always be Jerry West
fans for the rest of our entire lives. We never talked
to Mr. Clutch again...once was manna from heaven..but
we will hold those memories very dear to our hearts,
forever!

So, Mr. Dave Kiff....sometimes "being accessible can
be a good thing"! That goes for all the bureaucrats,
staff and those elected officials as well. Sometimes
"titles" can get so wrapped up in their own self serving
lifestyles and world that they can easily forget the
"little people that put them into office in the first
place.

We haven't be able to chat with our "Stand-In" Newport
Beach Police Chief just yet....but we keep waiting
for the big Search Process to begin in earnest. Waiting
until we see the final four, as it were. Maybe we
just aren't paying attention. Do we have a new Police
Chief yet? No, we have been too engaged in dodging
Cable news about Tea Parties, Obamacare and all the
US Senatorial Mark-up Session actions...going on. We are
feeling a strong disconnect with all these shouters and
pouters right now. Although, the USC-Washington game
left us in that extremely poor condition presently.

Hey, don't start Matt Barkley Coach Carroll, what
happens if God forbid something happens to Matt
Barkley against the lowly Washington State team? Ugh,
maybe Coach Carroll should just play Mitch Mustain
instead. Even if we lose...maybe Matt will at least
be rested a little more for CAL the following week.
Hey, we know this is all about big money, big strategy
and the fact that as Marx said: "The opiate of the masses
- that keeps our minds off the truly important things!"

They don't pay us $4 million a year to keep or raise
the national consciousness....So, when they say..these
pivotal decisions are above our pay grade.....there is
little doubt.

What we can say...is that it has been a very long hot
summer....and the US economy seems to be making a very
slight come back. Although, credit card interest rates
are rising faster than the water in Atlanta. Could we
blame the bettering economy on the Trojan defeat Saturday?
Who knows! Let us all just pray and keep the faith!
"Fight On"!! that is!!!

READ MORE - Old School...New School.....Again?

Talking to a stone

I am the stone. I've heard over and over that exercise is important in keeping breast cancer from coming back. I even have an exercise book especially for bc survivors. I haven't looked at it for months and months. But I keep getting emails from our rowing coach, J, about exercise and breast cancer and on the ROW website she has links to articles that extoll the value of exercise in keeping metastasis at bay. Finally it sunk in. Monday I went to rowing practice, and Tuesday and tonight I rowed at the YMCA. I also rowed last week. I know I should cross-train but I like doing one thing over and over and over. (That must be why I created a workshop called The Joy, Joy, Joy of Repetition.) Just about everybody there except me has an iPod. I look at the TV when I'm sitting back up and leaning back. I watched part of The Office last night, and when it was over I switched it to the PBS station. Uh oh. PBS didn't have closed captioning. But I was already strapped into the rowing machine so I just watched people's mouths move. They were talking about Milton Bradley, the out-of-control Cub and I could presume what they were saying. I am interested in him because of his name. You know, like the board-game company.
Tonight I watched the Nature Channel on Colony Collapse Disorder. I learned that in Sichuan in China, where a pesticide has wiped out the bee population, people do the pollination. It's very labor-intensive, as you might imagine, and involves sticks with feathers on the ends.

One solution to the disorder is to bring in Africanized bees that are resistant to CCD. But those bees are aggressive and who knows what they might do? or what a hybrid bee would be like?
We should all be as busy as bees, and develop our own waggle dances. Or just pull back and forth, back and forth to get our heart rates up.
Alas, it appears that bees don't listen, either. New research shows that bees observing the dance often ignore it.
I need 150 minutes of exercise a week to be called moderately fit. So far I've had about 75, not counting yoga, and it's only Wednesday.


[The increasingly rare bee suit]

READ MORE - Talking to a stone

What's on my food?

I found a new-ish (launched this summer) website that tells you what pesticides you're ingesting with each piece of fruit or vegetable. Kind of; it tells you what was on a sampling of foods in 2007, and what damage those pesticides can do. It's part of the Pesticide Action Network. (Oh no, does that mean we gotta do something and not just complain??)

READ MORE - What's on my food?

Follow-up

Swedish researchers found that eating foods that were high in acrylamide did not cause breast cancer. To wit: During a mean follow-up of 17.4 years, a total of 2,952 incident cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in the cohort. In multivariate analyses controlling for breast cancer risk factors, no statistically significant association was observed between long-term acrylamide intake (assessed at baseline and in 1997) and the risk of breast cancer, overall or by estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) status.
Interestingly, in looking through media reports about acrylamide, I've found many hostile responses in the Comments sections, some calling the info "junk science." How valid are the accusations? Who knows? But it seems that some researchers consider the substance to be a danger.

READ MORE - Follow-up

Hello, Sweet; Good-bye, Crunchy

First the sweet: A pot of bright tomato-red-orange lilies appeared in one of our flower beds yesterday. It seems new, since the tag is still on it, and we plan to plant it. Our across-the-street neighbor denied any knowledge of it. Did someone receive the plant and give it to us because they assumed we'd give it a good home? Someone once told me of a Dutch Jew who had to leave a hiding place (all during the Nazi occupation, but you knew that) and walked through a neighborhood and rang the bell on a stranger's house. The Jew asked the stranger to hide him/her and the stranger did, but asked, Why did you pick my house? The Jewish person said: Because your roses look so well-tended.

There is no real moral to this story because some horrible people have beautiful gardens. But still a nice story.
***
Then the crunchy; farewell to crunchy, crispy, roasted, well-done, crackly and blackened. I've heard for years about the dangers of charred food. Now here's a new twist, today's Tribune tells us. If you cook high-carbohydrate food at high temperatures, a substance called acrylamide is formed. When rats eat it, they develop tumors and neurological problems. The Swedes have been concerned about this since 2002, when its food administration reported on high levels of acrylamide in high-carb foods, and a link between acrylamide and cancer in lab rats.
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment tells us that it's possibly carcinogenic to humans.
The bad news is that you can't just eschew french fries and go about your merry way. According to the Office and the FDA, reports the Trib, of 100,000 people who ingested coffee once every three days in their whole lives, one person would develop cancer from acrylamide. Pie, pizza, breads, popcorn and sweet potatoes are also culprits. So are potato chips.

In 2005, the state of California sued chip makers Heinz, Frito-Lay, Kettle Foods Inc., and Lance Inc. for not having warning labels on their bags. A year ago, the companies settled out of court by paying $3 million in fines. They also pledged to cut down the amount of acrylamide in the next three years.
The Trib advises: Think golden yellow instead of golden brown, pre-sock potatoes in water, don't store them in the fridge, trim bread crusts, toast lightly
, and eat fewer processed foods and a balanced diet with lots of grains and fruits and vegetables.
As always: be a vegan or vegan-ish, avoid processed foods. At least chocolate wasn't on the list.

READ MORE - Hello, Sweet; Good-bye, Crunchy

Di ujung Perjalanan Rusli Zainal Sang Visioner

Bagaimana Kabar Rusli Zainal Sang Visioner sampeyan? masihkah di optimasi?

Tidak lama lagi kontes ini akan segera finish dan melahirkan seorang jawara seo baru. Jika tidak ada perubahan posisi dalam 3 hari ini maka untuk pertama kali sepanjang yang saya ketahui blospot keluar sebagai pemenang dalam kontes seo.

Mana yang hebat, blogspot atau Pemilik blog? saya percaya yang hebat adalah pemilik blognya karena secara keseluruhan hanya 2 peserta bermesin blogspot yang masuk sepuluh besar serp Rusli Zainal Sang Visioner saat ini.

Berakhirnya kontes ini bukanlah berarti berakhir pula kesempatan kita belajar seo, setelah ini masih ada kesempatan lain seperti Kenali dan Kunjungi Objek Wisata di Pandeglang atau Mengembalikan Jati Diri Bangsa. Kedua kontes ini masih akan berlangsung cukup lama, jadi masih ada waktu jika belum mendaftar dalam kontes tersebut.

Namun, Jangan lupa bahwa belajar harus di aplikasikan. Setelah mendapatkan strategy seo yang pas maka silakan aplikasikan Stretegy seo tersebut untuk mengembangkan bisnis online kita. Itulah tujuan sebenarnya kita belajar seo dengan mengikuti Rusli Zainal Sang Visioner ataupun kontes lainnya.

READ MORE - Di ujung Perjalanan Rusli Zainal Sang Visioner

Eat, drink, be merry and quick & get health insurance

The New York Times reported today on a study by the American Institute for Cancer Research. Conclusion: Women can cut their risk of breast cancer by almost half if they stay lean, exercise at least 30 minutes every day, breast-feed, and limit alcohol to one serving a day.
Not shocking by any means, just common sense, but because this is a study of many studies (about lifestyle), it has numbers behind it. Many numbers. It's the largest study of its type ever conducted, according to the Institute. The AICR's director of research estimates that nearly 40 percent of breast cancer cases could be prevented if women followed this prescription.
In other words, the AICR is blaming the victim. Sorta. It's so much easier to document what a person does than to figure out how exposure to pesticides and pollution contribute to tumors. Which is my theme song. But in the meantime, the AICR recommends a diet of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans. There was no mention that I could see of the difference between organic and conventional foodstuffs.
The AICR reported on another study that shows that pessimists and women with "cynical hostility" had a higher incidence of heart disease and cancer, and they died earlier than the optimists. Black women who were hostile were more likely to die of cancer.
I want to make fun of this report because I have a lot invested in pessimism. I also want to point out that there's a difference between hostility and negativity and I think cynicism can be a sign of intelligence. It can also be a sign of stupidity and paranoia.
How did the researchers spot the cynics? Besides hearing their frequent snorts of derision, the researchers "administered" a questionnaire, which I think means they read statements to the women and asked if they agreed or disagreed. Or it might mean that the women answered on paper. Sample statements: "In unclear times, I usually expect the best"; "If something can go wrong for me, it will." Cynical hostility was measured by reactions to to such statements as: "I have often had to take orders from someone who did not know as much as I did," and "It is safer to trust nobody."
These were post-menopausal women, mind you. Wouldn't you expect that women in their 50s and beyond would have a history of being under-employed?
It turned out that optimists lived in the western United States, had more education and money, health insurance, and attend religious services. They were less likely to have diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, or depressive symptoms.
Well wouldn't you be hostile if you were lacking in education and income, were jobless, didn't have health insurance and had diabetes or were depressed?
So you could say that having health insurance makes you healthier and happier.
I am cynically hostile to this report, which does not bode well for me.
At the top of this post is a photo of a skeptical woman, which is not quite the same as cynical, but will have to do.

READ MORE - Eat, drink, be merry and quick & get health insurance

On a scale of one to ten...

That's what they always ask you: Where is your pain on a scale of one to ten?
The question, of course, is, what's ten? I imagine ten to be Joan of Arc at the stake. A man being hanged. Amputation without anesthesia or even a bullet. I don't know ten. I don't ever want to know ten. And if ten is supposed to be the worst pain I've ever felt, what use is that? How can every patient's ten be the same?
The better scale is the FPS-R (Faces Pain Scale-Revised).

When Nurse L was trying to assess my Taxol-induced bone pain, I said it was a three. Then I described the pain to her and she said it sounded like ten. Again: compared to what?
Cruel and unusual, J mused when he was 12 and in the hospital for the sarcoma that eventually killed him. Unusual punishment, he said--they could put you in a room filled with butterflies. That's unusual.
And what's worse than a root canal is a dental implant, which I am in the middle of experiencing. On Thursday the periodontist pulled out the remains of tooth #19 (penultimate molar on the left side) in two pieces, and then drilled a hole in my jawbone and stuck a post inside.
Later the dentist will connect another post to the top of the internal post and then fashion a crown around it.

Meanwhile, my bone is supposed to welcome the new foreign body into my skeletal system. It will become part of me, by osmosis. (Not really, but by ossification.)

The periodontist gave me a prescription for 18 tablets of 600 mg ibuprofen (one refill allowed) and yes, 14 antibiotic capsules, a strange one I've never heard of: Clindamycin. It's a turquoise bullet. The last day my jaw has ached. How much? Sometimes in the whimper stage. That's the only way I can calibrate pain. First there's Complaining then Whining then Whimpering then the Fuck! stage and then Crying, though saying Fuck! and crying can come upon you at the same time. Then there's Weeping. Even in yoga I've felt that Fuck!/near-crying pain in my hips when we do variations of the lunge or runner's pose.
I had decided to call the periodontist and tell him about my pain. I would also have to tell him about the disappearance of the thread he used to make stitches. The thread was loose last night and then (as dumb as it sounds) I chewed on it until it broke and now there is no thread. It was supposed to dissolve.
I had decided to break out the codeine but after ibuprofen I'm back in Complaint only.
Elaine Scarry wrote about pain. I read some of her book, The Body in Pain, several years ago. From a quick look at reviews and summaries on line: She says that it is so very difficult to describe pain, that pain leads to destruction that "unmakes" the world.
The opposite of creative, generative. Pain is negative proliferation, creation turning in on itself, crabbed, deformed. Pain sounds a lot like cancer, like evil, the void taking over.
Pain, as Snoopy once said, hurts.
L's mother wouldn't take her pain pills at first. Then she did.
Our friend B had a hernia operation then came here a few days later. This was in spring. He wouldn't take pain medicine because he wanted to feel how strong the pain was.
I'm as curious as the next person but after I feel pain I want to get rid of it. Now. The ibuprofen dulls the ache some, but there's still the underlying pain. How much? Does it distract me? Yes. But then I'm easily distractable. Is it making me complain or whimper? In between. Maybe I will try the codeine tonight, left over from some other procedure. We do have well-stocked shelves of medicine, we have much to offer in the way of relief. And we will not be too proud to use them.
Meanwhile, my itching is starting up again, a side effect of my polycythemia vera, my blood disease. Sometimes the itching is mostly burning and it so painful and inremitting that I feel despair. Which is not a stage of pain, but something altogether different. And now I will take an Atarax and the itching will fade and disappear and I will go to sleep.

READ MORE - On a scale of one to ten...

Cancer has left the family...

downtown Litchpatch

...as far as we know. My mother-in-law's melanoma was removed from her leg, skin was grafted over it, and there's no damn cancer in her lymph notes. She's walking around and changing the dressing herself, which is good because her sister and brother-in-law are leaving today, and L left after a week, and I made a cameo appearance.
In all, we quintupled the Jewish population of Litchfield, IL, aka Litchpatch.

READ MORE - Cancer has left the family...

Sonia's Antibiotic

My mother is a subset of the category of Typical Jewish Mother--she's elegant and tasteful, The Jewish Jackie Kennedy, my cousin has called her for decades. She's as anxious and fearful as the stereotype, or more so, but she relays her doubts not in a whining, gratey New York voice, but in an olderish-but-not-creaky Southern Lady accent. The accent is not Deep South, and not light, but more medium Texas drawl. She has lived in only two places her whole life--Dallas (smaller, more snobby about its culture) and Houston (where she moved as a bride, and found you didn't have to wear white gloves as often).

The last person I met with a whiny-New York voice was a German with at least one American parent. So you can never rush to judgments with accents.

I was talking on the phone with my mother, who had just returned from a sibling arts-outing to Marfa, Texas, and I mentioned that I had a dental implant, my first, coming up later that day. She's had her troubles with implants, including one that made a side of her face swell up. The reason for mine is that a root-canaled crown fell off about a month ago and so the remains of the tooth (a shallow, uneven ring coming out of the gum like a worn-down wall) must be pulled, for about $300, of which my insurance will pay a portion. Then the periodontist will insert a metal cylinder into the jawbone, which will grow around the implant. Insurance will not pay for any of that, which is of course the more expensive part.
Our conversation ends. Then she calls back: She forgot to tell me [again, imagine the voice of a Southern Jewish Lady Mother] about Sonia's antibiotic. Sonia is her friend who had a lumpectomy many years ago and lymphoma recently. Sonia (or S) finished chemo about a month ago, about the same time that her husband died. S just went to the dentist for a cleaning and was chided in the office for not pre-medicating. The message is that I need to take an antibiotic before my dental surgery in order to avoid infection. I told my mother that I didn't need an antibiotic. When I was accused of having a mitral valve prolapse, I used to pre-medicate, but then some other doctor along the line asserted that I didn't have the prolapse. I reminded my mother that I didn't take an antibiotic before my root canal when I was going through chemo, that no one ever told me I needed an antibiotic before a dental appointment--not the dentist, not the oncologist. Undaunted, she said, Check it out. I said OK, which she knows is noncommittal.

She calls that night to see how the procedure went. I tell her that the surgery was postponed (because it happens to be true) because when I got to the periodontal office, the receptionist said my appointment wasn't on the office calendar. She said, We wondered why you were on the doctor's calendar, but not the other calendar. She wondered? If she wondered so much, why didn't she call me? The periodontal office person said she was on the brink of calling my dentist. Which, neatly enough, is how my family works, through indirection: If A is upset with B, A will automatically turn to C to discuss it, and maybe C will pass B's words along to A. I asked the receptionist about antibiotics and she said they weren't necessary. I tell this to my mother. But S's doctor..., my mother says; but everyone I talked to..., my mother says. She doesn't see that I am not the same as 80-something S, that my breast cancer is not S's. My mother was accidentally prescient about one piece of medical advice. Before I had cancer, when I was just your average gal with lumpy breasts from fibrocystic disease, my mother told me that S's doctor told her she shouldn't have soy, and therefore I shouldn't. I said no one had told me I shouldn't have soy, that my knots weren't cancerous, that there was no reason to do as S did.
And then I was diagnosed with estrogen-munching cancer, and my oncologist told me to avoid soy because it resembles estrogen.

A few months ago S sent me an article from the New York Times about eating to outwit cancer. I was skeptical of it because the author of the article asserted that cancer feeds on sugar, and no one had told me that. But then I mentioned this to an expert who said, yes, sugar causes inflammation which can lead to cancer. So score one for the Southern Jewish Mothers of Houston.

My surgery is planned for tomorrow, and I will not be taking an antibiotic beforehand. When I was in third grade or so, we had to write about intangible gifts, and I blazed forward and wrote many little essays about these gifts, and by the time I got to the fourth or fifth one, I was writing about the gift of worry. Worry (A), my mother (B) and I (C) go back a long way. Or maybe worry is (B), which my mother transmits, or worry is the medium through which other messages are conveyed. It is complicated.

My cousin (by marriage) D has created the term negative R--- attitude, to describe the fear and caution that my mother's family (the family R) carries in its genes. Forty years ago, my grandfather R told my cousin (the one who later married D), that he would pay for her undergraduate education if she would only opt for the University of Texas instead of the dangerous radical Northern school, the University of Wisconsin, where she was bent on going, and did in fact attend and graduate from. And she went to graduate school in New York City, and lived in Boston, before finally returning to Texas, with D. Luckily, her mother had married a man who was not afflicted with NRA and who calmly allowed his children to venture hither and yon. And yes, Madison was radical in those days and when anti-war activists bombed the physics building, a researcher died and four others were injured. NRA can sniff out danger. The problem is the bar is set very, very low.
***
Accents can be misleading. Last week a downtown panhandler threatened an 80-year-old Chicagoan with a knife before the cops shot him. I heard the older man on the radio and he said fest instead of fast, sounding to me like a guy with a Yiddish accent, like someone who came here straight from Ye Olde Shtetl. It turned out that the man left France at age 25 and his last name sounds Armenian, not Jewish. Many years ago my friend P wrote to me from college in New York about a conversation with a little old man with a Yiddish accent, and noted that there are fewer and fewer of these people and accents who are around. Which was true then, and true now, though now and then you hear a Soviet emigre with that accent. I'm not talking about a Slavic accent, but one spoken by someone whose first language was Yiddish. Which has been dying out, we've been told, for at least 100 years.

READ MORE - Sonia's Antibiotic

Dr. Kiff and the Time Machine!

Soon, our City Manager Homer Bludau will be following
in the footsteps of Chief of Police John Klein and will
be seeking early retirement this month.

"The talk on the streets ..s all too familiar..
strange expectations...everyone is watching you....."
from the Eagles - "New Kid in Town"!

Dave Kiff and Sharon Wood have been the stalwart
providers of temporal support for "the Big Bludau"!
Acting as both researchers, deflectors and inspectors...
Wood and Kiff are the ones....that have responded
as "clear as mud" sometimes on various contentious
issues over the years. The base reality is - they
have both done a good job of playing the roles of
"conscientious public servants". Their titles have
been: Assistant City Managers. An odd set-up that we
believed occurred after Kevin left and Homer came on
board. Before that, we think Dave may have been the
solo Assistant. If someone knows they should tell
us!

The rumor mill says that Dave Kiff is now the anointed
one.....to replace Homer. If so, it sounds all too
logical, reasonable and correct. Dave has dutifully
done his business without screaming and stamping his
feet in egoistic slam jam. There have been too many
others that we might mention that couldn't cut the
mustard in that regard - but we won't!

The truth is: Sharon or Dave are more than qualified
to do the job. Who finally gets chosen will be "very
interesting". In the words of Arte Johnson...for those
that remember Gary Owens and Goldie Hawn on television.

READ MORE - Dr. Kiff and the Time Machine!