RAISING CHILDREN

Raising children is a cooperative enterprise. BOTH parents, family and friends should cooperate to show the child how to be a good, productive adult. Raising children is NOT a competition. Anyway, judging good parenting performance is not possible until the child is at least 30.

Parents who believe they have won the mommy wars, because little Zaine plays soccer and gets straight A's, are being WAY premature about their success.

Obedient children sometimes cannot make decisions when they become adults. Disobedient children can hurt themselves and/or others.

It is best to make your children obey when they are very young, and gradually allow them to make more and more decisions for themselves. People make a mistake when they let their little ones run all over without any manners. Toddlers needs to learn the same things puppies need to learn: sit, stay, come, quiet, and no.

SHARING EVERYTHING

Facebook is a fun way to stay in touch with friends and family. Facebook also has a scary way of sharing information.

For instance:

Jane is on Facebook with her Facebook friends Dick, Harry and Carmen.

Jane takes a fun little quiz, which shares her Facebook information with the sponsor of the quiz. She also automatically shares the Facebook information of Dick, Harry and Carmen with the sponsor of the quiz.

Jane plays a fun little Facebook game, which shares her Facebook information with the sponsor of the game. She also automatically shares the Facebook information of Dick, Harry and Carmen with the sponsor of the game.

Now Facebook is allowing Jane to share the Facebook information of Dick, Harry and Carmen with web businesses who send spam email to Jane, Dick, Harry and Carmen.

Dick, Harry and Carmen should bring a class action lawsuit against Facebook for violation of privacy, disclosure of personal information for commercial purposes, and exploitation of Jane's faith in the friendly nature of Facebook's business.

Many web businesses ignore privacy concerns. Google thought it was a neat idea to suddenly share all the email address books of its customers with its customers' email correspondents. They soon changed their minds after it was already done. Hey guys, some of us are REQUIRED to keep our email address books private. Ever heard of attorney - client privilege?

NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SHARE ANOTHER PERSON'S PERSONAL INFORMATION WITHOUT THEIR EXPRESS PERMISSION. NO BUSINESS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SHARE A PERSON'S PERSONAL INFORMATION WITHOUT THEIR EXPRESS PERMISSION. This is especially true when a person has an expectation of privacy or when a person is using a site for friendship rather than for business.

MYTHBUSTERS IDEAS

Wouldn't it be nice if Mythbusters did the tricks from Burn Notice?

The cell phone bug, the cell phone bug powered by a USB port, the breaking of a hand jack hammer with a match, blowing up water sealant, taking an x-ray with a TV tube, thermite (sp?) in a can burning through a car engine, underwater broom gluing, bullets set off by various things, shooting through the wall at someone behind the door are all fun things for Mythbusters to try so the rest of us can stay safe and still get our curiosity satisfied.

FEAR OF RECESSION

Economist after economist says that the recession is over. The only reason people do not have jobs is because employers are too fearful to hire people. They are bragging about record profits and still no mention of hiring people.

WHY?

Because fear causes a FLIGHT or FIGHT response.

If a person in the US decides on a FIGHT response, usually they will participate in protests that have no logical basis.

If a person in the US decides on a FLIGHT response, they hide in their homes and businesses and make no decisions that entail any risk at all.

PLEASE STOP BEING AFRAID. PLEASE STOP SPREADING FEAR.

MICROWAVE MAGIC

As a single person, I use my microwave a lot. Here are some of my favorite recipes.

ALL TIMES ARE FOR TOP POWER and assume a microwave with a bottom that turns the food.

BROCCOLI

Cut the tops off the broccoli, arrange the broccoli tops top side up in a two inch deep glass soup bowl or glass pie pan. Put in about a half inch of water, salt the top of the broccoli, sprinkle ROSEMARY on top of the broccoli, and zap for about 5 minutes. Microwaves greatly depend on the amount of food and water, so it is better to under cook, taste and then zap again. Drain and serve.

ARTICHOKES

Cut the top two inches off the artichoke. Cut the stem off the artichoke at the point where the leaves start. Put artichoke in a glass bowl with about an inch of water. Sprinkle about a quarter teaspoon of salt and a some garlic salt on the top of the artichoke on the cut off leaves. Put a tablespoon of butter on top of the salt and garlic. Zap for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on size. Artichoke is done when you can easily pull off the leaves. Drain the water, put some butter in bottom of the glass bowl and eat. You can dip the leaves in butter or mayonnaise, but usually with this method, you can eat the artichoke without dipping.

HOW TO EAT THE ARTICHOKE

Start with the lowest leaves. Scrape the leaves on your teeth to eat the part that is the least green at the point where the leaf joins the plant. When you get down to the leaves you can almost see through, take a fork and gently remove the entire leafy part from the stem part that is now left. Be careful, some of the leafy part is the "choke" in artichoke. Eat the stem part that is left. The stem part is what is called the heart of the artichoke and is REALLY GOOD. Remember that many people dip the leaves and the heart in butter or other dressing.

SOFTEN BUTTER

There is nothing worse than taking the butter out of the fridge and trying to butter your sour dough bread. So put the wrapped butter quarter pound stick into the microwave and zap it for 10 SECONDS, and you will have soft butter. Zap it more and the butter will melt. Some butter has metallic wrapping, so put that butter on a plate before zapping.

MELT BUTTER

To melt butter for popcorn or to dip artichokes, put it in a small glass cup that would hold at least a cup of water. Put just the butter into the cup and put the cup into the microwave for one minute and WATCH IT MELT. When it starts to boil up, TAKE IT OUT. DO NOT LEAVE THE BUTTER. Butter is expensive and a pain to clean up after it gets all over the bottom of the microwave.

VARIATION OF MOM'S OYSTER STEW

Mom's oyster stew is just canned oysters cooked in hot milk. It is probably an aquired taste.

Start with a deep glass bowl. Put in garlic salt or a garlic clove put through a garlic press. Drain the oysters and put in them in the bowl. Add milk to more than cover the oysters. Add two tablespoons of butter. Zap for 3 or 4 minutes. The butter should be melted. Sprinkle on dried or fresh chives. Eat with oyster crackers.

I prefer to microwave recipes that call for heated milk as the milk will not burn in the microwave.

EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION

People protect what they view as their privileges by right of birth or by right of hard work. Sometimes what people view as their privilege by right is changed, because of a conflicting right.

An example of this is the privileges which men were given prior to women getting the right to vote. Now, in most countries, men are not the only people to vote, to work, and to make decisions which other must follow.

Some men are still upset by this.

Another example is the American Chinese, who were once prevented from owning land in the US.

As societies grow, more and more groups demand and get equal treatment in voting, in working, and in making decisions which others must follow.

Some societies decide that the groups demanding equality will not get equality. Sometimes the groups denied equality decide to revolt against the society. Sometimes this is done peacefully and sometimes there is a violent revolt.

I am against violence. I believe in Gandhi's philosophy of peaceful protest. I believe that, usually, violent revolutions continue being violent even after their initial goals are met.

HOWEVER, if you are a government which is ignoring large, continuous peaceful protests, OR, you are a government which meets ALL peaceful protest with violence and arrests, then you risk a violent revolution.

I STRONGLY BELIEVE that ALL PEOPLE must be treated equally and fairly. I STRONGLY BELIEVE that we must listen to the minorities, the majorities, the women, the men, the old, the young, the ugly, the beautiful, the poor, the rich. EVERYBODY needs to be listened to and treated equally.

If you want to know if your government is NOT treating people equally, there are some tests you can ask yourself.

Are the roads in poor areas as good as the roads in rich areas?

Are the schools in poor areas as good as the schools in rich areas?

Are jobs given on merit or are jobs given based on the family background and/or influence of the person getting a job?

Does a poor person have a chance to become rich through education and hard work?

Do the police pay as much attention to a crime against a poor person as they pay to a crime against a rich person?

EQUALITY is HARD WORK. EQUALITY is especially hard work for those people who are benefiting from better, but unequal, treatment.

REMEMBER THAT EVOLUTION IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN REVOLUTION.

TAXING THE RICH

The rich tell us that if we make them richer, we will all be richer. This is incorrect. Generally, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Even the middle class has less money.

It is not true that if we tax the rich they will move somewhere else. As far as I can tell, the rich like opera, fine restaurants, fancy cars, fancy boats, fancy parties, and showing off. These pleasures are generally not available in places where there are no taxes.

It is not true that the poor are poor because they are lazy. Generally, the poor work much harder than anyone else. Many of the poor are sick or disabled. Many of the poor work two or more jobs just to pay the rent.

You all must understand that "Atlas Shrugged" is fiction, written by a woman traumatized by the Russian Revolution (read "We The Living"). The Russian peasants had a reason to be angry. They were basically slaves, bought and sold with the land, but their masters did not even feed them, they had to grow their own food.

I do not agree that we should tax the rich until they are poor. But to tax the rich is not an evil act. To tax the rich will not make them run and hide. I do not understand why a rich person needs to buy another expensive toy rather than pay taxes. Sometimes I think that the very rich are also very greedy.

The rich have access to politicians and the media. They can easily tell us their wishes to be richer. The poor are generally quiet and meek, afraid to speak on their own behalf, because they fear retaliation. They fear losing their jobs, and what few privileges they do have. Have you ever noticed that it is mostly the poor that go to prison for drug use?

BUSINESS SKILLS -- POLITICAL SKILLS

Often, especially in the US, a businessperson runs for governmental office. The theory is that government should be run like a business, and he/she has the skills to run things correctly.

Unfortunately, the skills necessary to run a business are very different from the skills necessary to run a government. For one thing, a business person can say, "Do what I tell you or you are fired." It is not possible for the head of a government to fire another elected official.

The goal of a business is to make a profit. The goal of government is to efficiently provide governmental services, such as good roads, police protection, schools, help for the disabled, etc.

I am particularly trouble by businesspersons who try to buy their way into a governmental position. These people NEVER start small. The only thing that will satisfy an ex-CEO is to be a governor or senator. Usually, governors and senators have YEARS of political experience before running for such a high office.

It reminds me of the social climbers who want to buy their way into high society.

EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENTS

In the beginning, we were small groups, living in caves, governed by the strongest person. As travel became easier, groups merged together to form larger and larger groups of peoples who interacted peacefully, often governed by a leader, called a king or a pharaoh or an emperor or another local title.

In the beginning, leaders and their immediate families were fed better than anyone else. The resulting childhood nutrition made the leaders' children generally the best choice to lead the next generation.

As larger and larger groups came together, there were religious and moral issues in conflict. (If you have ever run a wedding you learned that families have different ideas of what should be included in a wedding.) The larger society has to figure out how to tell right from wrong. They are no longer able to just do things the way they have always done, as the groups inside the larger society will have different ways to do things. The laws have to distinguish between what EVERYONE agrees is wrong, and what some people think is wrong.

For instance, in some societies, an unescorted woman is automatically considered to be doing something wrong. As women become more educated and independent, they are often unescorted. It seems simple to say that women should be allowed to do whatever men do, but then the government must protect the women from people who disagree. What seems simple to an outsider is always a more complex problem for the society undergoing change.

As adequate nutrition became more common, the skills and intelligence of the "lower classes" became more apparent. This is because childhood nutrition is CRITICAL to brain development.

As people become better fed, they demand that they get a voice in the running of their government.

Therefore, as societies grow and prosper, they generally become more democratic either by revolution or by evolution.

Now travel is so easy that the entire world is linked into one worldwide economy. The internet is international. Criminals go to other countries to commit crimes, or use the internet to commit crimes in other countries.

We now need to figure out world rules for what is right and what is wrong, versus what has always been done by each country.

I have a few questions.

Why are overseas people allowed to put obvious scams in spam email and steal monies from our citizens?

When is it necessary to intervene when a county is abusing and/or killing its own citizens?

Do sanctions punish or strengthen a rouge government? Sanctions are used internally by the rouge government to say, "This is THEIR fault not OUR fault. Are we going to allow THEM to tell us what to do?"

Why are some countries allowed to export LOTS of stuff, but limit imports to protect their local businesses?

Why are some countries allowed to set the price of their money to make the price of imports higher than they should be?

Why are some countries allowed to spread violence in a futile attempt to enforce drug prohibitions?

It is no longer possible to live in splendid isolation. We are all interconnected. We need to solve the problem of how to live peacefully on our lovely planet.

Oh, and if you are one of those idiots who think more nuclear bombs will help with the peace process, may I recommend therapy? We still have plenty of atom bombs with which we could destroy the planet.

MEDIATION -- A SILICON VALLEY SUCCESS STORY

I have twice been involved in mediations where the volunteer mediators helped two people reached an agreement when I could not even get them to be reasonable. Even better, in both cases the anger, felt by one or more of the parties to the mediation, was significantly lessened.

The mediations were done by the Santa Clara County Dispute Resolution & Ombuds Program. The mediators are almost all volunteers.

These mediators make the world a better place by helping people see the other side of the dispute and by helping people arrive at a compromise.

Much violence between people is not based on a reasonable disagreement, but on pride, misunderstanding, and the difficulty we all have in being able to say what is really wrong.

If your community does not have such an organization, I am certain that the people running our program would be glad to tell you how to set up a program and how to train the mediators.

HOW TO GET SLAMMED

SLAMMED is what they call it when a company signs you up for phone service you do not want.

I am fairly certain that I just got slammed, and by Google, no less. Here is what happened:

I got a phone call from a robot asking me if I wanted to sign up for Google 411 directory assistance.

I though that I should at least ask if it was free so I pushed the button yes.

A live person then asked my name, and then the phone call hung up on me.

IF THIS SERVICE IS NOT FREE, this kind of business practice is going to get Google sued. I am certain that this is being done by a subcontractor. It is Google's responsibility to insure that their subcontractors act in a responsible manner.

NO SERVICE SHOULD BE SOLD UNLESS THE BUYER UNDERSTANDS THE COST OF THE SERVICE.

THIS IS BEING DONE because the FCC requires a recording of the name of the person who ordered the service. HEY, FCC, the con artists have gotten around your rule. Now you are going to have to require a recording of the person actually asking for the service and acknowledging that they know how much it will cost.

AND YOU GUYS KEEP THINKING THAT BUSINESSES DO NOT NEED TO BE REGULATED. I can not BELIEVE how naive you all are.

CANNABIS AND CANCER

There is CREDIBLE EVIDENCE that cannabis (marijuana) SHRINKS CANCER TUMORS in rats.

In the 1970s, the National Institute of Health gave a grant to the Medical College of Virginia which was supposed to prove that cannabis damages the immune system. Instead, the researchers found that CANNABIS SLOWED THE GROWTH of lung cancer, breast cancer, and virus-induced leukemia. The study was quickly shut down.

In the October 2003 issue of Nature Reviews, the researchers from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, described a study where mice with tumors were given cannabinoids. They found:

CANNABINOIDS INHIBIT TUMOR GROWTH IN LABORATORY ANIMALS.

CANNABINOIDS CAN KILL TUMOR CELLS WITHOUT HARMING THE CELLS WHICH DO NOT HAVE CANCER.

Check it out for yourself at www.nature.com/reviews/cancer.

This makes me REALLY ANGRY. We are letting WHAT WE THINK IS TRUE be more important than WHAT WE CAN PROVE IS TRUE.

PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR LIVES. People are taking medicine for cancer that makes them really ill. If there is a possible non-harmful medicine, we should be doing everything possible to research that medicine.

IF MY FRIEND DIED BECAUSE the US government CAN NOT ADMIT that it has ALWAYS BEEN WRONG about marijuana, I am going to be VERY ANGRY.

BTW, if you are going to give money to cannabis cancer research, give it to a university in Canada (or Spain). The US government gave almost useless marijuana to the researchers who studied the affect of marijuana on the appetite of AIDS patients.

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY

For some obscure reason, on April Fool's Day we tell people lies that we think will be funny, such as:

A young teenager tells her parents, "Guess what, I was arrested for shoplifting." (This is only a joke if it is NOT TRUE. It is also necessary that people believe you for a least a second.)

Then she smiles and says, "April Fools."

Then everybody laughs.

Unfortunately, everyone who knows me no longer believes a THING that I say on April Fool's Day.

One of my favorite April Fool's jokes was to tell people that I injured my knees playing football for the Boston Bruins. For some reason, the injury information stops people from noticing that I am female and the Bruins are not a football team. At least, I don't think they are a football team.

Happy April Fool's Day.