Got that mess cleaned up, I think.

Didn’t remember that I have my blog set up so that I can post via e-mail…so my blog was e-mailed the offending e-mail as a post.

Sorry to anyone who thought it was legit and clicked on the link.

Thanks Wonderlandhwy for the heads up!

In celebration of that, I bring you (again, not my first time!) the song that makes me all warm inside about winter…

John Denver’s “Aspenglow”

…

I wonder just how many of the “99%”ers are in fact, 8%ers…

The following is by an anonymous author (with numbers which are only approximate) and has been widely quoted for many years.  Does it put things into a different perspective???

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 would be Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth and all 6 would
be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
ONE would be near death; ONE would be near birth
ONE would have a college education
ONE would own a computer.

When you consider our world from such a compressed perspective, are you among the fortunate?  I certainly am!

And….

If you woke up this morning
with more health than illness,
you are more blessed than the
million who won’t survive the week.

If you have never experienced
the danger of battle,
the loneliness of imprisonment,
the agony of torture or
the pangs of starvation,
you are ahead of 20 million people
around the world.

If you attend a church meeting
without fear of harassment,
arrest, torture, or death,
you are more blessed than almost
three billion people in the world.

If you have food in your refrigerator,
clothes on your back, a roof over
your head and a place to sleep,
you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank,
in your wallet, and spare change
in a dish someplace, you are among
the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

If your parents are still married and alive,
you are very rare,
especially in the United States.

If you can read this message,
you are more blessed than over
two billion people in the world
that cannot read anything at all.

So if the world is reduced to 100 people, and only one has a college education, and only one owns a computer, then a whole lot of people who didn’t think they were, are actually in the 1%…

…

All the latest headlines surrounding Baldwin’s being kicked off an American Airlines flight state the reason for his ejection was that he refused to stop playing Words With Friends on his cell phone.  Not exactly so.  It seems Mr. Baldwin did a little bit more than refuse to turn off his cell phone.  The headlines make it sound like he kept his phone on 15 seconds too long and was forced to leave the plane.  He is acting like a spoiled brat, a petulant child.  This is NOT his first run-in with being the world’s biggest jerk.  Ever heard the message he left for his 11 year old daughter on her phone?  Yeah, really classy and fatherly, Alec…call your little girl a “thoughtless little pig”.  Nice.  There’s a lot more to his deranged tirade blasted at her, but the language isn’t exactly suitable for my blog.  Suffice it to say, he was foul.  Eleven years old.  Good grief.  But I digressed.  Back to his latest deranged behavior….

Sure, all the data and studies show that cell phone usage does NOT interfere with the workings of an aircraft and will not cause it to crash or anything like that.  But the fact remains, it’s the rule that electronic devices need to be shut off during takeoff and landing, and limited in their usage while in flight.  Plus, the flight attendants are the BOSSES of the plane and keep you ALIVE in case of an emergency and when they tell you to do, or not do, something, you do it, or stop doing it.  That’s just how it goes.

Here is the American Airlines comment from their facebook page on just how classy a guy Alec is:

Since an extremely vocal customer has publicly identified himself as being removed from an American Airlines flight on Tuesday, Dec. 6, we have elected to provide the actual facts of the matter as well as the FAA regulations which American, and all airlines, must enforce. Cell phones and electronic devices are allowed to be used while the aircraft is at the gate and the door is open for boarding. This passenger declined to turn off his cell phone when asked to do so at the appropriate time. The passenger ultimately stood up (with the seat belt light still on for departure) and took his phone into the plane’s lavatory. He slammed the lavatory door so hard, the cockpit crew heard it and became alarmed, even with the cockpit door closed and locked. They immediately contacted the cabin crew to check on the situation. The passenger was extremely rude to the crew, calling them inappropriate names and using offensive language. Given the facts above, the passenger was removed from the flight and denied boarding.

If *I*, and likely you, had acted in such a manner, we’d have been hauled off in handcuffs.  But this maniac walked away and got himself on a later flight, on which I suppose, he behaved himself, at least enough so to be able to remain on the plane.

This isn’t a man who has simple anger issues.  This is a very sick guy who needs to not be in society as he is now.

I’m not one who does the boycott thing, but I won’t be watching his shows, going to his movies, or doing anything that supports him in any way shape or form.  He’s calling for a boycott of American Airlines.  I think American Airlines should ban him forever from flying.  If I was one an American Airline flight attendant, who he called “retired Catholic school gym teachers”, I would walk off the plane if he showed up on my flight.  I’d have the right to do that written into my union contract, in fact.

…

I grew up on Bungalow Street.  It isn’t a weird street name to people who grew up in my town, but when I started to make friends outside of my little town, I learned it was a little odd.

There were lots of big families in my town.  There are six siblings in my own family.  That didn’t seem like a big family, until I started to make friends outside of my little town.  The biggest family on the three blocks of my street had 11 kids.   That was a big family, but certainly not the biggest in town.

The next door neighbors had five kids.  And when Christmas came ’round, they turned into a very crafty and sneaky bunch of kids.  I don’t know if their parents ever knew, but they would surreptitiously unwrap each of the presents under the tree before Christmas and then rewrap them so that nothing seemed to be amiss on Christmas morning.  And so they’d know what they were all getting.

My mom was a little bit crafty and sneaky herself.  She would not put our names on our gifts.  She came up with a new code every year.  Sometimes she would number the presents, or she would mix up the names on them.  Even if we would have opened the presents (which I’m not sure we ever would have, but she wasn’t taking any chances) we wouldn’t ever know who they were actually for…so what would be the point.

Kudos to my mom for her pro-activity in keeping Christmas a surprise!

What about you?  Did you ever try to find out what you were getting before Christmas?  Did your parents do anything devious like my mother did?

…

This is the story of how one of our family’s words came into being…..

A few Christmases ago, because he was new to Colorado, I bought my little nephew (he’s not quite so little anymore) a pair of insulated overalls for playing in the snow.

I called them snowveralls.  I thought I made the word up, but I have since found that I am not the original I thought I was!  :-)

When Mitchell opened them up, he was quite excited!  His mother (my sister) asked him “Do you know what those are??”.

He nodded in the affirmative and replied…..”ovaries”.

So, we now call those slickery insulated winter clothing items…..”snovaries”.

True story.

…

However, I let the stupidity speak for itself, lest I not do it justice by giving it a rant!  I found that in order to categorize this post I needed to create a new category for it.  So I created two.  This is the official first post categorized under “Lou Rants” and also “headdesk”.

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration

Brussels bureaucrats were ridiculed yesterday after banning drink manufacturers from claiming that water can prevent dehydration.

We went on Halloween, just because, well, why not?  This was part of the decoration of one of the “sepulcres”, and seemed appropriate for the day:

There were many other visitors to the cemetary.  And lots of chrysanthemums, which I learned after returning home is the flower best known for remembering the dead (the article pointed out that mums should never be taken as a hostess gift).  So, there were not just touristy types at the cemetery that day, but people coming (often with mums in tow) to honor loved ones and notables who had passed.

I was expecting a large and beautiful gravesite for Edith Piaf.  But it was small and simple.  In fact, if not for the other people visiting the site, we might not have found it.  Edith Piaf was not her given name.

Fittingly, those visiting her grave brought roses…

The cemetery was laid out much like a randomly plotted city.  There were winding cobblestone roads marked with street signs.

In a number of strategic locations there were “roadmaps” to assist in the location of gravesites.

This “city” is also the final resting place of Modigliani, Molière, and Jim Morrison.

The “notable” M’s

We didn’t look for Modigliani’s or Molière’s graves, but we did seek out Jim Morrison’s.  I also expected somewhat of a spectacle for his grave.  But it was even more simple than Edith Piaf’s.  His was, however, surrounded by a low fence to keep his fans from getting too close.

Nearby trees and light standards have been turned into message boards of a sort for those who come to visit.

Even the wads of gum stuck to the tree have messages written on them.

There is no shortage of beautiful art or architecture in this city within a city.

As it was late fall, the leaves had mostly turned color and many had fallen.

Those that remained in the trees lining the cobbled streets made the place just a little bit golden, and a whole lot beautiful.

This trailing vine was hanging on to its smashing color and looking mighty fashionable as it decorated a grave largely forgotten over time…

While it was not in the least a creepy place, I don’t think I’d want to be there during the night time.  But if you ever are lucky enough to get to go to Paris, add “visit the Cimetière du Père Lachaise” to your “must do” list.

…

There was a time, a handful of years ago, that I sat in my car with my little brother discussing our frustrating and failing romantic relationships.  I purposed in my heart to begin to regularly ask God to bring my brother a life mate and to bless him with the children he so very much wanted to bring into this world with that life mate.  At that time, it seemed like his “getting” these things was so terribly far in the future.  He had invested much time and energy and love into a relationship he thought would be the one.  But it wasn’t.  He would have to end that relationship, grieve the loss of that relationship, evaluate the changes he need to make in his life, meet and date and woo a new woman, and THEN finally get married.  This is not a process that generally happens overnight!

Heck, I’d been praying for a life mate for myself since I was 16 and hadn’t gotten a “yes” answer from God yet, and I am ten years older than my little brother!  But God answers prayers in many different ways.  Sometimes the answer is “no”, but it is wrapped in a million gifts we never thought to ask for.

God answered my prayer for Low (my “baby” brother) with a resounding “YES!”.  God has answered my own prayer for me with “<silence> “, and with those million gifts I never even thought to ask for, as I wouldn’t have had any idea that they were things I’d even want.

Two years ago, after being introduced by a mutual friend on facebook, my brother married Kristine.  Two weeks ago, they were blessed with a beautiful baby girl.  Her name, Elianna, means “God has responded”.  He most certainly has.

I can’t even look at Elianna’s picture without tears coming to my eyes.  She is amazingly tangible and living proof of God’s love for my brother.  But she is also the same thing for me.  I. LOVE. my. nieces. and. nephews.  They are each God’s special gift to me, not just to their parents.  It has been ten years since one of my siblings had a child and I’d forgotten, just a little bit, how wonderful it is to have a new baby in the family.  I have another niece to love.  :-)

Over the past six years I have slowly come to the place where I realize that the best thing for me, the most generous thing that God could do for me, is to give me other people’s children to love.

And I am looking forward to loving this new niece of mine with all of my heart.  My baby brother has a baby.  God has responded…

…

November 1st.

Bad decision.

In France, November 1st is called La Toussaint, or All Saints Day, and it is a national holiday.  Which means the catacombs were fermés , closed.  Daaaaaaaaaaang.  Being a national holiday, pretty much everything “touristy” was closed.

It was a gray and darkish overcast day, our day for the catacombs.  It would have been PERFECT!  But, c’est la vie (c’est la mort??), our plans for the day required reworking.  As we had not had breakfast we decided to eat at a corner cafe called Café Du Rendez-Vous, which was right down the street from the catacombs…and it was open!  We picked a place outside so we could observe the bustle of the corner from a close perspective.

We settled in under the white and red striped awning and ordered the not so very frenchy sounding “Breakfast” from our waitress who spoke absolutely lovely English.  :-)

It started with a generous basket of fresh breads with butter, jams, and Nutella.  My choice was the croissant which I smeared with Nutella and would have died a very happy woman, had I died that is.  Orange juice, café crème, water basted eggs, and a little glass pot of plain yogurt (into which I stirred just enough apricot jam to make it a wee bit fruity) rounded out the meal.  I could have had bacon with it, too, but I passed on that.  When the plates of food were brought out, another small pail of bread joined the jumble of dishes, and glasses, and cups filling two small round cafe tables.

As we dined, the rain started.  And it was a GOOD rain, too!  So, in sight of the closed entrance to the catacombs, we sat, and talked, and watched…and I took pictures!

And while we sat and just enjoyed being in Paris, others who planned their day around Les Catacombes came and went away disappointed…

I allowed myself to be disappointed as I really wanted to see this bizarre sight.  But the rain and clouds lifted after a few hours and the rest of the day was spent enjoying long walks down broad boulevards, coffee on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, window shopping at Cartier and Louis-Vuitton, and a walk along the Seine to watch the lights of the Eiffel Tower ignite for the last time.  We came across a photography exhibit and river house boats.  And the smell of something sweet and delicate wafted through the air.  We followed our noses to a street creperie where ordered crêpes chocolat.  The guy making the crêpes was an artist.  So cool to watch him fry up those delicate circles.  And the final result was even better than the my earlier “could have died happy” croissant with Nutella.  After one last look at the preposterously gorgeous Eiffel Tower, we made our way back to the 2nd arrondissemont and our apartment where we packed to get ready for an early leave back to the Charles de Gaulle airport the following morning.

Paris far exceeded my expectations.

“Go to Paris” was never on my list…but I daresay “Go back to Paris” is.

…

Brilliant.  Seriously brilliant.  A great and super cheap solution to homes that are dark during the day for those (primarily, anyway) in third world countries.

http://www.wimp.com/lightenup/

…

But I am SOOOOOO excited to be going!  My friend Abner (same friend of the Timbuktu/West Africa adventure) and I decided we wanted to go on a trip to a place where we could drink the water, not have to take malaria meds, and leave the sleeping bags and mosquito nets at home.  We wanted to eat bread and drink wine, and listen to music while sipping coffee in street cafes, and cross bridges and take pictures of loveliness.  And Paris just seemed like the exact right place to do it!  PLUUUUSS, being late fall, it should be nice and chilly and maybe drizzly and rainy and gray and perfect for taking moody Fronchy photos!  :-)

ALSO, ever since I read about the catacombs under the streets, I decided I needed to see them, if ever I went to Paris.  Other things I am hoping to see?  La Tour Eiffel, l’Arc de Triomphe, the gardens of Versailles, Notre Dame, and I would love to cross all 23 bridges.  I am sure that a week will not be long enough to completely explore the city, but it will be long enough to get a feel for what life in Paris is like.  However, no matter what we do or do not do, if this song ever plays anywhere where I can hear it while I am there, I will consider my trip complete!

I rented an apartment for the week we’ll be there, and it’s in a real neighborhood with real Parisian neighbors.  How cool is that?

…

January 1991.  Taken from the Statue of Liberty crown observatory.

…

“If vaccines WORKED, then this author wouldn’t care if others are vaccinated.

You sound like a drug dealer telling potential customers how ‘cool’ they will be if they just start doing drugs.”

To the person who left this comment I say this:

I will take you and your position that vaccines aren’t an effective method of preventing disease a lot more seriously if, when you get bit by a rabid animal, you decline the post-exposure rabies series.

…

Yesterday my dad, my nephew Mitchell, and I, headed out to Genoa, Colorado for a day trip to “The Wonder Tower”.  It was soooo much better than I even imagined it would be!  There is a maze of dusty rooms filled to the gills with all kinds of strange and wonderful collections.  The tower is a series of themed rooms (the red room, the yellow room, the big room, etc.) which houses a number of creaky worn out wind-y staircases and ladders that lead to a lookout platform way up at the top.  You can see the air above six states, supposedly.

From the minute I saw it from the freeway I knew I was in for a treat!

If you like weird collections and oddities, and especially if you like to take pictures….this place is the place for you!

Maybe I’ll see you there!

…

If you are, like I am, blessed/lucky enough to live in a place where the thought of contracting river blindness, malaria, and even head lice, are things that you think about…. ummmmm…like pretty much never…take a moment and be thankful about that.

With the eradication of disease comes prosperity.  Did you know we had malaria (a mosquito borne illness) here in the United States in the South until it was eliminated in 1947?  A million people around the world die from malaria each year.

Did you know that we had major outbreaks of Yellow Fever (also a mosquito borne illness) here in the States until 1905?  Due to the highly infectious nature of this illness (despite attempts at reaching 90% vaccination rates in endemic regions around the world) there are still 30,000 deaths (and 500,000 cases of it) a year.

Did you know that the last major outbreak of cholera (spread through contaminated food and water) to hit the United States occurred in 1911?  Since cholera was introduced to Haiti by an aid worker after the massive earthquake of 2010, there have been about 350,000 cases of cholera and over 14,000 deaths.

How about diphtheria?  Diphtheria is a respiratory illness that has been largely eradicated in the United States (only a rare few cases in the past decade).  Did you know that the tetanus shot you get for skin injuries is usually a Td?  You probably know the “T” stands for tetanus, but did you know that the “d” stands for diphtheria?  Since the diphtheria vaccine was introduced in 1920 and high levels of vaccination rates were obtained, diphtheria for U.S. citizens became a thing of the past.  Not so for the people of Russia in the 1990′s and more recently the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic where large epidemics have occured.  And speaking of tetanus, there are hundreds of thousands of deaths annually worldwide from tetanus.  Only 50-100 of those many deaths occur in the United States.  Those cases are nearly always in unvaccinated/undervaccinated individuals.

These diseases are shackles to poor and developing nations and is one of the causes of keeping them impoverished, uneducated, and with seriously limited opportunities .

Because our medical system and our society in general is not constantly plagued by these expensive (both from the medical standpoint as well as the economic standpoint) diseases, we are free to grow and expand our economy and to put finances towards treating things that in developing nations are often not addressed at ALL!  Like cancer, depression, osteoporosis, heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, etc (etcetcetcetcetc.)  There are diseases of aging in our country that are not even SEEN in other countries due to short life expectancy.  For 2011 the life expectancy for a Swazi is projected to be 31.88 years.  No, that is not a typo.  This is in large part due to a completely preventable and most often untreated, disease, HIV.

People in the United States actually have access to a drug called Latisse…this drug treats the condition of “inadequate, or not enough lashes”.  That’s eyelashes, people.  We have a drug for growing EYELASHES.  Now, part of me is absolutely appalled by such an apparent lack of perspective by the American public.  Another part of me is thrilled that we have the time, resources, and overall health to be able to treat such a thing as a problem!  I don’t think I’ll ever meet someone from Swaziland, or Zambia, or Ethiopia (etc.) who ever THINKS about having inadequate lashes.  But I digress.  Back to real diseases…

There’s all manner of diarrheal illness, and pneumonias, and African Sleeping Sickness, and polio, and meningococcal meningitis, and bubonic plague, and tuberculosis, and hepatitis, and typhoid, and ebola, and tetanus, and lymphatic filariasis andandandandandand.  I could go on!  Many of these diseases fully, or almost fully, preventable through education, simple medications, and vaccinations.

On a personal level, I have friends who suffer from chronic malaria.  People with chronic malaria become symptomatic a few times a year.  When sick they cannot work, and it drains their already meager finances when medications and sometimes hospitalization are needed.  It is hard to get ahead in life when one single disease has such negative effects.  Imagine facing ALL of these diseases (and so many more) on a regular basis?  It’s nearly unthinkable for us in developed countries.

So, you might be asking, what does all of this have to do with ivermectin??

And what do river blindness, malaria, and head lice have to do with each other?

Well, just one of the feared diseases of West and Central Africa is river blindness.  River blindness is the result of a chronic parasitic multi-system inflammatory disease caused by a worm that inhabits fast flowing rivers.  Black flies breed in these rivers and are the vector for this worm.  As rivers are often the primary water source in this part of the world, thus the potential for becoming infected.  Around 35 million people are currently infected with river blindness, and roughly 300,000 of them are already irreversibly blind. Approximately 140 million people in Africa are at risk of infection.  Being blind in most parts of Africa is nothing like being blind in the developed world.  As so many of those at risk for river blindness are from agricultural societies, being blind (or even visually impaired) can leave a person incapable of farming and providing for his/her family.  It’s hard enough to get any sort of education in these countries…imagine trying to get an education in most of Africa if you are blind!

Ivermectin is one of a family of drugs called “anthelmintics or antihelminthics”.  They treat worm infestations in people.  Worms are an extremely common finding in many populations in Africa (and around the world).  Among its other uses, ivermectin can be used off label to treat lice and scabies.  Taking a single dose provides 24/7 insecticidal protection.  The lice are killed when they bite and consume the now insecticidal blood of its victim.  Invermectin is also used in Africa to treat the worm infestation that leads to river blindness and filariasis.  In 2008 and 2009, a team of researchers to Senegal found that in communities where ivermectin was being used, the numbers of malaria carrying mosquitoes dropped off dramatically two weeks following treatment!  In similar communities where ivermectin was not being used, numbers of these mosquitoes had doubled in the same time frame.  To me, this is a fascinatingly unexpected and positive outcome to the use of ivermectin!!!!  To treat river blindness, an individual takes a single dose of the drug annually for 10-15 years.

I have this scenario in my head where communities would be tested and treated en masse for malaria infection, given insecticide treated mosquito nets, and maybe vector spraying would be done to eliminate mosquitoes.  To me, it seems, that with an aggressive multi-directional assault like this on malaria, malaria could be DRAMATICALLY reduced and maybe even eradicated.  With the addition of ivermectin into the mix, it might be an even more effective war.  Imagine…attacking malaria, river blindness, lymphatic filariasis, scabies, lice and other worm infestations all at the same time!

If “the west” could coordinate all of its currently disparate efforts and wage a full out assault on malaria, I think we could see a huge victory.  It would take massive coordination of services and some pretty specific timing, but if one generation of mosquitoes and malaria cycles could be disrupted, imagine the effect it could have on people who live with these plagues on a regular basis.

Why can’t we do this???  Is it possible?  How much DDT would be needed to spray all of the homes in affected areas of Africa?  How many mosquito nets would be needed?  How many doses of ivermectin would be required?  And how many people on the ground would be needed to make such an assault possible?  How many cycles of treatment and spraying would be needed?  And perhaps the biggest quetion is would the governments of these countries even be willing to allow such a program??????

We have put men on the moon.  We have built impossible dams and bridges.  We built the Panama Canal.  We have eradicated smallpox.  Computer power that used to occupy a room now occupies nearly microscopic space.  Why can we not do something spectacular like free the world from the prison of malaria?

There are organizations doing great things to combat malaria and bring hope to a sick and dying world.  There are a multitude of NGOs, plus faith- and government-based operations involved in the fight.  What if they all worked together, in concert to pool resources, work towards a common goal, reduce duplicated efforts, reduced waste, and increased  efficiency?  What an amazing thing that would be!

Is it just a dream?

…

If our Child Protective Services worked in the rest of the world, most all children would be taken away from poor, but loving parents…lack of running water in the dwelling seems to be the reason cited for the removal.

Average rural homes in Swaziland

Average “suburban” home in Haiti

My instincts tell me that a horrible injustice has been done to this family and I pray that they are reunited quickly.  I have looked for information online as to how to possibly help this family, but have been unsuccessful.  Perhaps the good people of Houston will rally together and help this family out of their terrible predicament.

I hear lots of stories about people who are down on their luck and have more sadness heaped upon them in the midst of that, but this family has grieved me particularly.  It seems highly indicative of the overall health of this family that none of the children has gotten less than a B in any of their classes despite their unusual living situation.  I think those kids belong with their parents, even if they are living (legally!) in a storage unit.

…

Lisa Wooden is apparently a deadbeat.  She owes somebody some money.  And the sharks are circling ME trying to get it from her.

Shortly after moving to Colorado, I began to receive phone calls from various collection agencies looking for her.  AND for three other people as well:  Richard Wooden (presumably Lisa’s spouse), a Ralph Martinez, and one other guy, apparently not related.  I was rather used to these calls as when I lived in California there was a woman with my same first and last name who lived in my town who was also a deadbeat.  Her bill collectors would actually call me at work, which is illegal, but they tried it anyway.  Her nonsense actually got into my credit history.  I got that mess cleaned up when I bought my house, and I unlisted my phone number.  That seemed to solve my California problem.  When I moved to Colorado, I didn’t bother listing my number in the first place.  I guess the number I was assigned used to belong to these various people.

After informing each of these agencies over and over and over again that I was not, have never been, and never planned to be Lisa Wooden (et al), they would take my number out of their databases.  But eventually these accounts would be sold to other agencies, who would do their own research, and again attach my number to their files.  This happens every six to twelve months.  I’ve even posted on this before.  I get so many of these calls, (and calls from various solicitors and whatevs) that about a year ago, I simply stopped answering my home phone.  I don’t even bother to look and see who is calling anymore when the phone rings.  I check my messages about once every two or four weeks.  Since I hadn’t checked my messages in the past week, I went and did so right now.  Five debt collection messages, some for Lisa, some for Ralph.  Usually the messages are recorded, but most of this batch, were actual live debt collectors.  The messages usually say something along these lines….”This call is for Lisa Wooden.  If you are not Lisa Wooden, do not listen to this message.  Please hang up and call xxx.xxx.xxxx to have your number removed from the call list.  If you continue to listen to this message, you are acknowledging that you are Lisa Wooden…” yadayadayada.  (I guess if I listen, they can come and kill me or something.)

ExCUSE me, but you called ME!  And left a message on MY voice mail.  I think that means I can listen to it if I want.  If you don’t know that you’ve reached who you are trying to reach, then don’t leave personal and private information!  And if you do leave it anyway, don’t tell ME not to listen!  Gutsy, really.

Anyhow, yesterday one of these agencies called my CELL PHONE.  Now I’m peeved.  I think I’ve been pretty tolerant of these constant harassments over the years, but now….they’ve gone too far.  I’m not sure exactly how I am going to solve this problem, but every problem has a solution, and I will find it.

Have any of YOU had this problem?  Have you solved it?  Short of changing my phone numbers, how do I make this stop once and for all????

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Mopti, Mali

Early the morning that Abner and I were to travel from Mopti, Mali, to Ouagadougou (love saying that!), Burkina Faso, we encountered two young peace corps volunteers who were returning back to Ghana after spending time in Mali.  We hung out with them at the “bus station” waiting for our transport to be ready.  Lara and Raphaela were in their early 20′s and were from Belgium and Germany.  They would be on the same bus as us.  Because of all their time in Ghana, they’d gone a bit “wild”.  Raphaela had gone swimming in the Niger River (wow, a really bad idea) and was sporting a pretty “nice” case of impetigo (bacterial staph infection) on her face, neck, and torso.  They ate with (exceptionally) dirty hands.  I don’t know how wild I would go if I spent a year in a place like Ghana…but I think I would probably always eat with clean hands.  :-)  The girls were fun to be around for the next day and a half.  Westerners were a rare thing to run into on our particular itinerary.  It can be rather exhausting trying to communicate in a language (French) that you don’t speak well at all, and these girls were kind enough to speak with us in English.

Anyhow, while I cannot remember exactly what precipitated their sharing this lesson, I remember the lesson.

“Don’t buy a fish in the water” I was cautioned by one of the girls.  This was something they had learned from the Ghanaians they were living with.

It’s an excellent warning on knowing what you are getting before you invest in it.

Two young buys fishing the Bani River in Mopti, Mali

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The headline reads: “‘Strong possibility’ tornado deadly fungus, secret morgues links to Gulf Plague”.

Read the whole article HERE, but in a nutshell, Deborah Dupre (“Human Rights Examiner”) reports on the fungus which has killed a number of Joplin residents post tornado.  IF we are to BELIEVE Ms. Dupre and her primary source, Ian Crane, (UKexoilmanwhistleblower), the fungus CAUSING the deaths was “evaporated” from the Gulf of Mexico and ended up being spread about in the tornadic winds of Joplin, MO.  The fungus eVAPorated from the Gulf after it was PLACED there by BP (British Petroleum) to break down the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill there last year…the spill having NOT been an ACCIDENT at all, BUT a PURPOSEFUL “depopulation event” created in an evil plot by BP (and apparently a large host of other co-conspirators) specifically in order to plant GM (genetically modified) organisms IN the water with the ULTIMATE and SPECIFIC  intent of killing hundreds of thousands of people with those very same organisms!!!

Really???  I mean, come on.  Forgive my incredulousness.  This is certainly a terribly ineffective and incredibly expensive way to go about creating a depopulation event if that’s what the goal was.  Additionally, it is not a method that can be at all controlled nor is there any reasonable way to predict an outcome.  I’m as big a conspiracy theorist as the next person, but this is a stretch.  It just doesn’t make any sort of logical sense.

And it must be pointed out that there are simply some basic problems with the premise of evaporation as a microbiologic dispersing agent.  First of all….this fungus (zygomycosis) is a terrestrial dweller.  And secondly, I’m pretty sure that evaporation happens at the molecular level and doesn’t support the lifting of heavy cellular organism up into the wind.  I could be wrong.

Lastly, it should be noted that infections from zygomycosis are common after natural disasters where dirt and decaying vegetative matter contaminate open wounds, especially after earthquakes and tornadoes.

I’m going to go out on a limb with this one and call it a CONSPIRACY FAIL.

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