I love the passing of time

Aahhh! Perfect! Whenever I need to get back on a positive track, he can always do it for me. I’m on my way. I hear what he’s saying, right now. I just need to internalize it a bit more. There are a few free mp3’s on his website & I’ll put him on rhapsody when I get home….

I’ll try linking the mp3’s, but if they don’t work, go to Howard Jones Website, then click on ‘multimedia’ & ‘audio’

Collective Heartbeat MP3

(Thoughts and actions?) of words you’ve spoken
Write the scripts of life and open up the possibilities
To choose the role you feel happy in

Positive and negative
Hiding in the fabric of every choice and every wish
So choose a role you feel happy in
(Choose a role you feel happy in)
(Choose a role you feel happy in)
(Choose a role you feel happy in)
(Choose a role you feel happy in)

Here’s the card that you’ve been given
It’s not much but its neatly written
Here’s the life that you are living
Choose a role that you feel happy in
You get hurt and end up leaving
But to stay is most revealing
Take the knocks and get the meaning
Choose a role you feel happy in

You’re feeling like a stranger in your own world
Listen to the Collective Heartbeat
You’re feeling like a stranger in your own world
Listen to the Collective Heartbeat

(Choose a role you feel happy in) repeat x8

Beat, Beat
Listen to the Collective Heartbeat
(You’re feeling like a stranger in your own world)
(Listen to the Collective Heartbeat)

(Thoughts and actions?) words you’ve spoken
write the scripts of life and open up the possibilities
To choose the role you feel happy in

Positive and negative
Hiding in the fabric of
Every choice and every wish
So choose a role you feel happy in
(Choose a role you feel happy in)
(Choose a role you feel happy in)
(Choose a role you feel happy in)
(Choose a role you feel happy in)

You’re feeling like a stranger in your own world
Listen to the Collective Heartbeat
You’re feeling like a stranger in your own world
Listen to the Collective Heartbeat

(Choose a role you feel happy in) repeat x 8

You’re feeling like a stranger in your own world
Listen to the Collective Heartbeat
You’re feeling like a stranger in your own world
Listen to the Collective Heartbeat

Everlasting Love

He wasn’t looking for a pretty face
She wasn’t searching for the latest style
He didn’t want someone who walked straight off the TV
She needed someone with an interior smile

She wasn’t looking for a cuddle in the back seat
He wasn’t looking for a five minute thrill
She wasn’t thinking of tomorrow or of next week
This vacancy he meant to permanently fill

Chorus
I need an everlasting love
I need a friend and a lover divine
An everlasting precious love
Wait for it, wait for it, give it some time

Back in the world of disposable emotion
In the climate of temporary dreams
He wasn’t looking for a notch on his bedpost
A love to push, pull and burst at the seams

Is this love worth waiting for
Something special, something pure

Is this love worth waiting for
Bitterness will die for sure
Something special, something pure
Is this love worth waiting for

aaaahhhh : om :

The kids were watching ‘The Elf Who Didn’t Believe’ on ‘On Demand - Free Movies’, tonight (they watched it last night, too). It’s not a very good movie - plot contrived - most of the acting & script is pretty awkward. But, the kids enjoy it, so :shrug:

Anyway, it was on the TV tonight, as Jim walked thru the room. He stopped to watch it for a minute & said that some of the actors look familiar, but he couldn’t quite place them. I mentioned that the production company name, that is shown at the beginning of the movie sounded familiar to me, too - I thought, maybe, that it was the same production company that did the little ‘I love Trains’ videos that we used to get for the kids when they were little & into trains.

So, I went to IMDB & looked it up. Clicked on the production company (Cabin Fever Entertainment) & didn’t see anything familiar. Went back to the movie details & we decided to click on one of the actors, to see if they had done anything we’d seen… I started off clicking on the guy who played ‘Slick’ (one of the bad guys) & here’s what I got:

Burke Morgan

Photo Not Submitted

IMDbPro Professional Details

Filmography as: Actor, Notable TV Guest Appearances

Actor - filmography
(2000s) (1990s)

1. Bella Loves Jenna (2004) (V)
2. Bounty Huntress: Undercover (2003) (V) …. Victor Davis
3. “Sexual Confessions” (2002) (mini) TV Series …. Ted
4. Wicked Pleasures (2002) (V) …. Dan Thomas
5. Sinful Temptations (2001) (V) …. Mack Sweeney
6. The Killing Machine (2001) …. Callaway
7. Pleasures of Sin (2001) …. Victor Davis
… aka Do It to Me One More Time (UK: video title)
8. Dangerous Pleasures (2001) …. Grady Kent
9. Sex Files: Creating the Perfect Man (2000) …. Larry
10. Flies On Cupid (2000) …. Officer Billips
11. Passion’s Obsession (2000) …. Mr. Elliot
12. Virgins of Sherwood Forest (2000) (V) …. Viceroy

13. Shandra: The Jungle Girl (1999) …. Ian
14. Dungeon of Desire (1999) (V) …. Marcus
15. Scandal: On the Other Side (1999) …. Max Kohn
16. Sinful Obsession (1999) …. McCabe
17. Vipers (1999) …. Dr. Trent Bortz
… aka Dark Passion (USA: cable TV title)
18. The Elf Who Didn’t Believe (1997) …. Slick

Filmography as: Actor, Notable TV Guest Appearances

Notable TV Guest Appearances

1. “The Best Sex Ever” playing “Blaine” in episode: “The Peeping Thompsons” (episode # 1.4) 2002
2. “Nightcap” playing “Peter” in episode: “Discoveries” (episode # 2.12) 18 August 2000
3. “Kama Sutra” playing “Dan” in episode: “The Kiss That Awakens” 2000
4. “The Voyeur” playing “David” in episode: “Night Shift”

Now, I don’t know if we’ve seen any of those actual movies, but we’ve certainly seen some in that same genre…

For fun, we clicked on the guy who played Santa… And, while he didn’t have any pron acting roles, he did direct this x-rated movie

A few of the other actors have some nicely seedy and/or b-movie credits. I think it’s kind of nice. This ragtag group getting together to try to make a nice wholesome children’s film. You can tell that they tried really hard & that their hearts were totally into it. This one may have to become one of our annual holiday films

Aspartame Causes Cancer in Rats at Levels Currently Approved for Humans

23 Nov 2005

A statistically significant increase in the incidence of malignant tumors, lymphomas and leukemias in rats exposed to varying doses of aspartame appears to link the artificial sweetener to a high carcinogenicity rate, according to a study accepted for publication today by the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). The authors of the study, the first to demonstrate multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered to rats in feed, called for an “urgent reevaluation” of the current guidelines for the use and consumption of this compound.

“Our study has shown that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic compound whose carcinogenic effects are also evident at a daily dose of 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg), notably less than the current acceptable daily intake for humans,” the authors write. Currently, the acceptable daily intake for humans is set at 50 mg/kg in the United States and 40 mg/kg in Europe.

Aspartame is the second most widely used artificial sweetener in the world. It is found in more than 6,000 products including carbonated and powdered soft drinks, hot chocolate, chewing gum, candy, desserts, yogurt, and tabletop sweeteners, as well as some pharmaceutical products like vitamins and sugar-free cough drops. More than 200 million people worldwide consume it. The sweetener has been used for more than 30 years, having first been approved by the FDA in 1974. Studies of the carcinogenicity of aspartame performed by its producers have been negative.

Researchers administered aspartame to Sprague-Dawley rats by adding it to a standard diet. They began studying the rats at 8 weeks of age and continued until the spontaneous death of each rat. Treatment groups received feed that contained concentrations of aspartame at dosages simulating human daily intakes of 5,000, 2,500, 500, 100, 20, and 4 mg/kg body weight. Groups consisted of 100 males and 100 females at each of the three highest dosages and 150 males and 150 females at all lower dosages and controls.

The experiment ended after the death of the last animal at 159 weeks. At spontaneous death, each animal underwent examination for microscopic changes in all organs and tissues, a process different from the aspartame studies conducted 30 years ago and one that was designed to allow aspartame to fully express any carcinogenic potential.

The treated animals showed extensive evidence of malignant cancers including lymphomas, leukemias, and tumors at multiple organ sites in both males and females. The authors speculate the increase in lymphomas and leukemias may be related to one of the metabolites in aspartame, namely methanol, which is metabolized in both rats and humans to formaldehyde. Both methanol and formaldehyde have shown links to lymphomas and leukemias in other long-term experiments by the same authors.

The current study included more animals over a longer period than earlier studies. “In our opinion, previous studies did not comply with today’s basic requirements for testing the carcinogenic potential of a physical or chemical agent, in particular concerning the number of rodents for each experimental group (40-86, compared to 100-150 in the current study) and the termination of previous studies at only 110 weeks of age of the animals,” the study authors wrote.

The authors of the study were Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belpoggi, Davide Degli Esposti, Luca Lambertini, Eva Tibaldi, and Anna Rigano of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center, European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, Bologna, Italy. Funding for the research was provided by the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, Bologna, Italy. The article is available free of charge, click here.

EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at http://www.ehponline.org.

:-(

We were watching ‘Nova: The Universe Within’ with Annie & Shelby the other day. They show sperm racing toward an egg. There they were, getting all excited, cheering that plucky little sperm on! ‘Go, Sperm Go! You can do it!’

:D

Girl with peanut allergy dies after kiss

SAGUENAY, Quebec (AP) — A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut butter snack, hospital officials said Monday.

Christina Desforges died in a Quebec hospital Wednesday after doctors were unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss the previous weekend.

Desforges, who lived in Saguenay, about 155 miles north of Quebec City, was almost immediately given a shot of Adrenaline, a standard tool for treating the anaphylactic shock brought on by a peanut allergy, officials said.

An autopsy was being performed. Dr. Nina Verreault, an allergist at the Chicoutimi Hospital in Saguenay, declined to comment on the case.

The symptoms of peanut allergy can include hives, plunging blood pressure and swelling of the face and throat, which can block breathing.

Peanut allergies have been rising in recent decades. The reason remains unclear, but one study found that baby creams or lotions with peanut oil may cause children to develop allergies later in life.

About 1.5 million Americans are severely allergic to even the smallest trace of peanuts and peanut allergies account for 50 to 100 deaths in the United States each year. Canadian figures were not immediately available.

Just one more thing to worry about… Shelby is allergic to cow’s milk. I read on my stepparenting boards all of the time about crazy ex-wives & ex-girlfriends. One of my irrational fears with Shelby is that he might, one day, have one of these crazies in his life, who will cook him a nice meal using milk-based ingredients, as a way of venting her anger at him.

I don’t want him to have to be paranoid about that all of his life…

I hope he outgrows this allergy soon.

Shelby made a pilgrim hat at school, today. His kindergarten class & the other kindergarten class got together for a Thanksgiving party. The other kindergarten class made Indian headdress hats.

He was so cute in the pilgrim hat & so excited to tell me everything he learned about how the indians helped the pilgrims when they came to America.

He was just so happy about it all. He’s planning to do a play for us on Thanksgiving (with Annie as his co-star), all about the Pilgrims & Indians.

So, I decided to skip the lesson about what really happened when the pilgrims came to America, for now…..

Or, Saturday night, if we don’t have the time or energy on Thursday night (his next night off).

I really need to spend some quality time with someone who totally appreciates my music, despite my lack of a rhythm section.

What do I know?

It’s all conjecture on my part. Maybe everyone’s right & I’m wrong. Maybe we’re all right, in what works for ourselves. Maybe gender stereotypes are dead on right & 50% of the people on earth act one way all of the time due to their gender & the other 50% do the same.

I kind of think of gender stereotypes in the same way that I think of newspaper horoscopes. Of course, it’s possible that 1/12 of all people living will have some of the things happen to them that are mentioned in their horoscope that day. But, that doesn’t prove to me that newspaper horoscopes are valid at all.

But, I do believe that it might be possible that the gravitational pull of the planets could, somehow, affect us now & affect our personalities as they are forming from our birth. I just don’t think page 5 of the Lifestyle section holds all of the answers.

And, it is possible that hormonal, physical & societal influences in life can, somehow, affect us now & affect our personalities as they are forming from our birth. I just don’t think that popular media interpretations & societal expectations of ‘men’ and ‘women’ will tell us everything we need to know about our life partners (or about the people who we interact with in our lives in general).

I’m probably wrong, though

This is a post that I posted on FC… Just wanted to add it here, too, as another evolution of the mutual respect thing I’ve been thinking about lately, when reading some message boards… I added the ‘that none of you will agree with’ for the FC crowd :rolleyes:

In most truly healthy relationships, each person sees the other person as a whole unique individual, just as worthy of respect as they themselves are.

Each person in the relationship feels that the others experiences, opinions and emotions are just as important and worthy of understanding as their own.

Each has empathy for the other & desires the other to feel complete and content.

Without this, you are simply co-existing.

My son is constantly picking up things that he finds on the ground, as we’re walking anywhere. Everything that he finds can be categorized as a clue, a treasure or a tool. And, everything that he picks up must be carried home with us or put in my pocket, unless I can convince him otherwise.

A beautiful rock or nut? It’s a treasure!

A scrap of paper or piece of discarded fabric? A clue!

A stick or a cool shaped piece of plastic? It will be used to build the greatest device or fort known to man!

I was just in the bathroom, here at work & there was a folded up, dirty piece of paper on the ground. It obviously had writing on the inside.

I walked past it on my way into the stall, but, as I was washing my hands, with no one else there in the bathroom, I just felt that I needed to see what it was. So, I picked it up & unfolded it. It was half of someone’s shopping list. I put it in the garbage :shrug:

But, I’m still thankful to him that he’s given me this curiousity & wonder back. :hug:

but, I know it to be true. Did you know that some men can actually feel real emotions and have valid opinions about relationship and family matters?

Hard to really wrap your brain around, I know, but it’s true! We’re not always right just because we have uteruses! :faint: Try it yourself! Try really listening to your man as if he were a woman. You will be amazed.

j/k!! :rofl: LOLLLLzzzz :-p

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397937&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=exclusive–bush-plot-to-bomb-his-arab-ally-name_page.html

22 November 2005
EXCLUSIVE: BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY
Madness of war memo
By Kevin Maguire And Andy Lines

PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a “Top Secret” No 10 memo reveals.

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

A source said: “There’s no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.” Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency.

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.

A source said last night: “The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.

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“He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere. Blair replied that would cause a big problem.

“There’s no doubt what Bush wanted to do - and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.”

A Government official suggested that the Bush threat had been “humorous, not serious”.

But another source declared: “Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men.”

Yesterday former Labour Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle challenged Downing Street to publish the five-page transcript of the two leaders’ conversation. He said: “It’s frightening to think that such a powerful man as Bush can propose such cavalier actions.

“I hope the Prime Minister insists this memo be published. It gives an insight into the mindset of those who were the architects of war.”

Bush disclosed his plan to target al-Jazeera, a civilian station with a huge Mid-East following, at a White House face-to-face with Mr Blair on April 16 last year.

At the time, the US was launching an all-out assault on insurgents in the Iraqi town of Fallujah.

Al-Jazeera infuriated Washington and London by reporting from behind rebel lines and broadcasting pictures of dead soldiers, private contractors and Iraqi victims.

The station, watched by millions, has also been used by bin Laden and al-Qaeda to broadcast atrocities and to threaten the West.

Al-Jazeera’s HQ is in the business district of Qatar’s capital, Doha.

Its single-storey buildings would have made an easy target for bombers. As it is sited away from residential areas, and more than 10 miles from the US’s desert base in Qatar, there would have been no danger of “collateral damage”.

Dozens of al-Jazeera staff at the HQ are not, as many believe, Islamic fanatics. Instead, most are respected and highly trained technicians and journalists.

To have wiped them out would have been equivalent to bombing the BBC in London and the most spectacular foreign policy disaster since the Iraq War itself.

The No 10 memo now raises fresh doubts over US claims that previous attacks against al-Jazeera staff were military errors.

In 2001 the station’s Kabul office was knocked out by two “smart” bombs. In 2003, al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a US missile strike on the station’s Baghdad centre.

The memo, which also included details of troop deployments, turned up in May last year at the Northampton constituency office of then Labour MP Tony Clarke.

Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh, 49, is accused under the Official Secrets Act of passing it to Leo O’Connor, 42, who used to work for Mr Clarke. Both are bailed to appear at Bow Street court next week.

Mr Clarke, who lost at the election, returned the memo to No 10.

He said Mr O’Connor had behaved “perfectly correctly”.

Neither Mr O’Connor or Mr Keogh were available. No 10 did not comment.

I am nowhere near being atheist. I don’t believe that we can know if there is a god or higher power. But, so much of what he says in this essay speaks to me as an agnostic humanist, that I just wanted to share.

This I Believe

Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 · I believe that there is no God. I’m beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do. You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word “elephant” includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The Atheism part is easy.

But, this “This I Believe” thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life’s big picture, some rules to live by. So, I’m saying, “This I believe: I believe there is no God.”

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there’s no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I’m wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don’t travel in circles where people say, “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,” or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that’s always fun. It means I’m learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

Thank you.

41 years ago today, you were a teenager, giving birth at Elmhurst Hospital, knowing that you were going to give that baby up for adoption. We have no idea what brought you to that point in your life. We don’t know how hard it was for you, to be pregnant, to make that decision. We don’t know how hard it was for you afterwards, or where your life went from there.

All I know is that your decision, your loving wonderful decision, brought your baby to my in-laws & the life that eventually brought him to me.

You are one of the most important people in my life & you don’t even know it. I hope you are well. I hope your life, from that point forward, was the most amazingly wonderful joy rides ever. I hope that your every day is filled with peace, happiness & love.

Thank you!

about a message board & some threads I just read. Not even going to go into detail, just going to say that it’s pissing me off - they are talking to a grown woman in what seems to be a really good relationship as if she were a 13 yo child without a brain in her head.

Just because *their* husbands don’t talk to them as equals, just because *they* were idiots at her age, just because *they* can’t imagine having a growing open honest relationship, they assume they know her life & her mind better than she does.

Oddly enough, they are accusing her husband of taking advantage of her, of making her do things that she doesn’t believe are right for her, of manipulating her…. But, they, themselves are doing the very same thing, right there in the fucking thread. Calling her childish & immature, telling her that she’s acting like other people we know - drama queens, etc, telling her that they know *her life* better than her, because they are older & wiser & have more ‘life experience’.

Good for her, she’s holding her ground. They don’t want to listen to her talk about the conversations she has with her husband - not really listen. They hear her saying it, but somehow project their own ‘conversations’ with their husbands into the telling & come up believing that it’s more of a lecture, or a mind game or an argument, than what it really is (or how it sounds to me, anyway) - a two-way discussion between two people who respect each other and are exploring and learning about life as they journey through it together.

At least, that’s the way I see it. I’m probably projecting my own relationship & discussions with my husband onto my view of her life.

After a long day for both of us, everyone in the family sick in one way or another, we settled down to relax last night. Jim, particulary, has had some kind of medical problem or another for the past few months - quitting smoking, vasectomy & recovery, some kind of stomach bug & now this cold, cough, stuffy head that we’ve all got. And, with the cold or whatever it is, the kids are extra whiny & so are we. Makes for a really exhausting day.

Anyway, last night, after the kids went to sleep, Jim got into the shower. I was on the computer when he came upstairs & said that, while he was in the shower, he realized how absolutely amazing it is that we can get to the end of a rough day & get into a warm shower, in our heated home, with his mostly healthy wife & family upstairs. He doesn’t have to sleep in a shelter or in a tent city. He doesn’t have to worry about snipers, landmines or being caught in the crossfire. And, while in the shower, he had the luxury of wondering whether he would get a nice snack from the fridge or maybe have a beer when he was done. He doesn’t have to spend every day hoping that he’s lucky enough to find some work or some food for his family today. It’s right there, in our nice warm kitchen. The kids get a decent education at public schools. We have two cars that work pretty good & a garage to keep one of them in (even if the garage door opener’s not working).

I could go on & on about the wonderful lives that we have, in comparison to probably 90% of the world’s population. And, I want to keep that in mind all of the time, when the little things start to make me feel frustrated or mad.

We are truly blessed & lucky

(of course, I still wouldn’t mind winning the lottery )