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Midnight Sky on Netflix
Jan. 2nd, 2021 01:26 amOh, by the way? George Clooney's Midnight Sky on Netflix? Don't bother.
Merlin is on Netflix
Feb. 22nd, 2020 11:11 pmI kind of loved that show. I was genuinely delighted to see it there on Netflix. I'm happily on episode 2 now.
Movie reviews
Dec. 29th, 2019 11:46 amI've been going to movies lately, somewhat unusual for me.
Jumanji II
I loved it. I laughed and laughed. It was as good as the first (well, the first movie made for adults). They got the same cast back and found a reason why they all needed to go back in the game. They added Danny DeVito and Danny Glover. So you not only had kids (though the kids were now college age, so technically adults) in grown-up avatars, you also had old men in young bodies. Much hilarity ensued. I will happily watch this again.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Interesting take on Mr. Rogers. Not at all what I was expecting, and I mean that in a good way. I still came away wondering if anyone could really be that nice, but as a practicing Buddhist, I'm willing to see that level of kindness and generosity as a role model and goal. Absolutely a feel-good movie.
Knives Out
Well, I liked it a lot. One member of my writers' group was flabbergasted that I liked it. She panned it as a movie that couldn't pick what genre it wanted to be. From my perspective it did a masterful job of being a traditional whodunnit -- with marvelous plot twists I didn't see coming -- that was also self-aware enough to be gently parodying the genre and doing it with a touch of camp. The cast was stellar, including the actress who played the main character -- I SO felt for her!! Jamie Lee Curtis chewed the scenery and Chris Evans was NOT Captain America. My only cringe was Daniel Craig's deep south accent. I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge if it was well done or not, but it seemed SO WRONG for the character and the context, and as a sound to come out of Daniel Craig's mouth.
Little Women
I went at the behest of a friend; this movie was not on my list of things I wanted to pay to see. It was fine, but I could have happily gone my whole life without seeing this. One interesting thing was that they kind of merged the Little Women story with aspects of Louisa May Alcott's life. It was well done. It's just not a story that ever interested me much.
Jumanji II
I loved it. I laughed and laughed. It was as good as the first (well, the first movie made for adults). They got the same cast back and found a reason why they all needed to go back in the game. They added Danny DeVito and Danny Glover. So you not only had kids (though the kids were now college age, so technically adults) in grown-up avatars, you also had old men in young bodies. Much hilarity ensued. I will happily watch this again.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Interesting take on Mr. Rogers. Not at all what I was expecting, and I mean that in a good way. I still came away wondering if anyone could really be that nice, but as a practicing Buddhist, I'm willing to see that level of kindness and generosity as a role model and goal. Absolutely a feel-good movie.
Knives Out
Well, I liked it a lot. One member of my writers' group was flabbergasted that I liked it. She panned it as a movie that couldn't pick what genre it wanted to be. From my perspective it did a masterful job of being a traditional whodunnit -- with marvelous plot twists I didn't see coming -- that was also self-aware enough to be gently parodying the genre and doing it with a touch of camp. The cast was stellar, including the actress who played the main character -- I SO felt for her!! Jamie Lee Curtis chewed the scenery and Chris Evans was NOT Captain America. My only cringe was Daniel Craig's deep south accent. I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge if it was well done or not, but it seemed SO WRONG for the character and the context, and as a sound to come out of Daniel Craig's mouth.
Little Women
I went at the behest of a friend; this movie was not on my list of things I wanted to pay to see. It was fine, but I could have happily gone my whole life without seeing this. One interesting thing was that they kind of merged the Little Women story with aspects of Louisa May Alcott's life. It was well done. It's just not a story that ever interested me much.
Genre TV in Spanish
Jul. 12th, 2019 04:37 pmI went to WisCon, the Feminist Science Fiction Convention, this year, almost the only fannish thing I'd done in a few years, and was interested to hear a recommendation in a panel called "What Are You Watching" or some such, about two shows available on Netflix that are "genre" shows and are in Spanish. Mom and I have a little negotiating when it comes to watching TV, because our tastes have limited overlap. However, she is seriously studying Spanish. She wants to be part of the help my church and larger community are trying to give to immigrants. I would like to be part of that too, but I don't have the commitment she does to learning the language. Anyway, she scrounges for things to watch in Spanish -- not just the Spanish track on movies, though she'll settle for that. So I came home happily to report that I had two new TV shows to watch that, while not her favorite genre, were natively in Spanish. And I would be willing to watch them with her, because they are my genre.
Diablero, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7414954/?ref_=nv_sr_4?ref_=nv_sr_4
"A fallen priest, a legendary demon hunter, and a modern day superhero join forces to battle evil. "
It took me a minute to figure out who they mean by "modern day superhero" but I guess it's the girl who can take demons inside her and control them, rather than be possessed by them. This show is set in Mexico City so strongly that the city is almost one of the characters. The show is very colorful, Catholic, profane, and family-centered, also rather like Mexico City.
El Ministerio Del Tiempo, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4136774/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
Set primarily in Madrid, this one is about a secret Spanish Ministry that keeps an eye on a bunch of doors in time to make sure no one uses them to change history. The Ministry recruits people from all times to be time traveling teams. We follow a team made up of a 16th century warrior with a Conquistador feel to him, a young woman from the 19th century who was Spain's first woman university student, and a modern day paramedic. What I love about watching this show is seeing history from Spain's POV. The story of the Spanish Armada becomes this major disastrous tragedy that the country's most famous historical playwright needs to be rescued from, because he ends up assigned to one of the destroyed ships instead of one of the few that makes it home. It's just such a fun different perspective, for me.
Diablero, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7414954/?ref_=nv_sr_4?ref_=nv_sr_4
"A fallen priest, a legendary demon hunter, and a modern day superhero join forces to battle evil. "
It took me a minute to figure out who they mean by "modern day superhero" but I guess it's the girl who can take demons inside her and control them, rather than be possessed by them. This show is set in Mexico City so strongly that the city is almost one of the characters. The show is very colorful, Catholic, profane, and family-centered, also rather like Mexico City.
El Ministerio Del Tiempo, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4136774/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
Set primarily in Madrid, this one is about a secret Spanish Ministry that keeps an eye on a bunch of doors in time to make sure no one uses them to change history. The Ministry recruits people from all times to be time traveling teams. We follow a team made up of a 16th century warrior with a Conquistador feel to him, a young woman from the 19th century who was Spain's first woman university student, and a modern day paramedic. What I love about watching this show is seeing history from Spain's POV. The story of the Spanish Armada becomes this major disastrous tragedy that the country's most famous historical playwright needs to be rescued from, because he ends up assigned to one of the destroyed ships instead of one of the few that makes it home. It's just such a fun different perspective, for me.
Looking for Sustainable Ethical Clothing
Jul. 8th, 2019 06:58 pmOkay, y'all, I've been buying used clothing forever in order to save money and keep my consumer carbon footprint down, but lately I've been lured into how nice it is to have current clothing that fits. And then I find out how many times my clothes have crisscrossed the globe and how the company is using slave labor in Cambodia.
So I turn to the internet and to you. Does anyone have a favorite sustainably sourced, ethical source of online women's clothing?
So I turn to the internet and to you. Does anyone have a favorite sustainably sourced, ethical source of online women's clothing?
As seen on Facebook
Jan. 30th, 2019 07:45 pmGuys, this is SERIOUS.
They are closing!
They are closing ... BARS.
BARS are closing!
In WISCONSIN!
They are closing!
They are closing ... BARS.
BARS are closing!
In WISCONSIN!
Mom was humming ...
Dec. 18th, 2018 04:38 pm"Hello Darkness, my old friend/"
"Why must you come at 4 PM"
"Why must you come at 4 PM"
Friday night Mom and I had dinner at a local bar, and we ordered Old Fashioneds (made with Brandy, of course. This is Wisconsin) infused with CBD oil. CBD infusions are the current trend in drinks all over town. This one had orange-flavored CBD oil.
The fact that one can not only buy CBD oil over the counter but casually drink it in a bar drink just amazes me. It's not THC, of course, but still.
The fact that one can not only buy CBD oil over the counter but casually drink it in a bar drink just amazes me. It's not THC, of course, but still.
As Stephen Colbert said, "And the award in the 'Don't let the door hit you in the ass' category goes to Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker who lost Tuesday night to his Democratic opponent."
Honestly, I went to bed thinking Walker had probably won it. Who was leading had been flip-flopping all night. But around 1 AM a dump of tallied votes from Milwaukee came in and defeated Walker decisively. It's the end of a long eight years of corruption. One of the despicable things his legislature did was pass a law stopping a vital vote recount by saying the State will only pay for recounts if the final result is within 1%. Since Walker lost by a sliver more than 1%, he is hoist by his own pitard.
In fact, so many people were using that phrase about him on social media that a friend of mine went to look up what on earth a pitard is. I knew the quote was from Shakespeare -- Hamlet, in fact. Half the time any Shakespeare quote you can't place will be from Hamlet. But what exactly is a pitard and how does it hoist you? Ask your friends what they think it is. I've gotten a variety of creative answers by doing that.
It's a bomb. It was some kind of metal container for explosive powder that had to be lit real-time with a fuse. Very easy for the fuse-lighter to miscalculate and not get far enough away in time. The "hoist" refers to being blown up in the air. That's how it means you've been damaged by the trap you set for someone else.
I so did not know that one.
Anyway, so I woke up to incredibly happy news. We won't be able to undo much of the harm the legislature has done, because we're one of the most gerrymandered states in the country and they will stay solidly Republican, but at least we can stop our state from demonizing teachers (of all people!) I doubt we'll be able to get them back their collective bargaining rights that were ripped from them, though. Still, it has a healing feeling.
Honestly, I went to bed thinking Walker had probably won it. Who was leading had been flip-flopping all night. But around 1 AM a dump of tallied votes from Milwaukee came in and defeated Walker decisively. It's the end of a long eight years of corruption. One of the despicable things his legislature did was pass a law stopping a vital vote recount by saying the State will only pay for recounts if the final result is within 1%. Since Walker lost by a sliver more than 1%, he is hoist by his own pitard.
In fact, so many people were using that phrase about him on social media that a friend of mine went to look up what on earth a pitard is. I knew the quote was from Shakespeare -- Hamlet, in fact. Half the time any Shakespeare quote you can't place will be from Hamlet. But what exactly is a pitard and how does it hoist you? Ask your friends what they think it is. I've gotten a variety of creative answers by doing that.
It's a bomb. It was some kind of metal container for explosive powder that had to be lit real-time with a fuse. Very easy for the fuse-lighter to miscalculate and not get far enough away in time. The "hoist" refers to being blown up in the air. That's how it means you've been damaged by the trap you set for someone else.
I so did not know that one.
Anyway, so I woke up to incredibly happy news. We won't be able to undo much of the harm the legislature has done, because we're one of the most gerrymandered states in the country and they will stay solidly Republican, but at least we can stop our state from demonizing teachers (of all people!) I doubt we'll be able to get them back their collective bargaining rights that were ripped from them, though. Still, it has a healing feeling.
I moved across the country eleven years ago, and among the people I left behind was a family in my old church that I liked quite a lot. I was the "mentor" for their daughter's coming-of-age program, and we all camped together and served together on committees and such. Mark, the husband and father, is the head of the County Historical Museum.
Three years after we left, he became involved with the TV show on the History Channel called Pawn Stars. One night I spotted him while channel surfing, and did a double-take. Yes, that was Mark. He is one of their regular experts on the show. It probably helps that he's quite colorful. He wears an Amish looking hat and a huge gray beard (always has, so long as I've known him). He loves history and tells stories well. So, that happened. I mentioned seeing him in my Christmas card to them that year, and didn't think a lot about it again, because, no, I don't watch Pawn Stars. I now don't even have cable.
They came to town yesterday for a family wedding, and we had lunch. And I learned how much their life has changed! He is recognized wherever he goes -- the stories they told us included meeting fans in Germany and Ireland. He does spots now on a bunch of other cable shows, and gets paid to sign autographs and such. People want their picture taken with him. He and his wife find it amazing and amusing. His wife is a sociologist in actual academia, so she published a paper on becoming a celebrity. As they told us, most people who go through the process of becoming a celebrity aren't sleeping with a sociologist. He is not on Facebook, but there are four fake Facebooks of him, one in Spanish. Being them, they have not gone crazy with fame and fortune. They live in the same house and hold the same jobs. They just have money to travel, which I envy. And he is recognized everywhere they go. (Seriously, world? Pawn Stars? heh)
We met midday at a pub near their hotel which is lively at night, but dead during the day. As if to illustrate, as we got up to go, a group of people at the bar asked him if he was who they thought he was. I ended up taking the group photo of them all.
So, I guess I get to say I knew him when!
Three years after we left, he became involved with the TV show on the History Channel called Pawn Stars. One night I spotted him while channel surfing, and did a double-take. Yes, that was Mark. He is one of their regular experts on the show. It probably helps that he's quite colorful. He wears an Amish looking hat and a huge gray beard (always has, so long as I've known him). He loves history and tells stories well. So, that happened. I mentioned seeing him in my Christmas card to them that year, and didn't think a lot about it again, because, no, I don't watch Pawn Stars. I now don't even have cable.
They came to town yesterday for a family wedding, and we had lunch. And I learned how much their life has changed! He is recognized wherever he goes -- the stories they told us included meeting fans in Germany and Ireland. He does spots now on a bunch of other cable shows, and gets paid to sign autographs and such. People want their picture taken with him. He and his wife find it amazing and amusing. His wife is a sociologist in actual academia, so she published a paper on becoming a celebrity. As they told us, most people who go through the process of becoming a celebrity aren't sleeping with a sociologist. He is not on Facebook, but there are four fake Facebooks of him, one in Spanish. Being them, they have not gone crazy with fame and fortune. They live in the same house and hold the same jobs. They just have money to travel, which I envy. And he is recognized everywhere they go. (Seriously, world? Pawn Stars? heh)
We met midday at a pub near their hotel which is lively at night, but dead during the day. As if to illustrate, as we got up to go, a group of people at the bar asked him if he was who they thought he was. I ended up taking the group photo of them all.
So, I guess I get to say I knew him when!
Politics, Religion and Diet
Aug. 30th, 2018 09:44 pmThere are no politics or religion in this post. My title is because I think diet is something you should not bring up with strangers or friends, unless you happen to know how they feel on the subject, otherwise you'll likely start a fight or bad feelings, at best.
So, here I am bringing it up, because I truly believe I have found something that can make a huge difference in the lives of many of my friends. I stumbled into a website called The Food Revolution, and from there, I learned about a Whole Food Plant-Based (WFPB) diet. There's an amazing amount of evidence that eating plants -- fruits, grains, vegetables and nuts/seeds -- can literally reverse heart disease and diabetes. It protects against them, if you don't have them yet, and against Alzheimers and even cancer. ( Read more... )
Edit to Add: I obviously failed to post with comments turned off. I think that may be a paid feature, and I no longer have a paid account.
Documentaries
Forks Over Knives
Available on Netflix.
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
Available on Netflix On Vimeo. Try this link: https://www.rebootwithjoe.com/watch-fat-sick-and-nearly-dead/
What the Health
Earthlings
(These last two I have not seen yet, but they are frequently referenced.)
Ted Talks
Dr. Michael Klaper, The Most Powerful Strategy for Healing People and the Planet
"30 days, 60 days, 90 days of that fuel mix [a whole foods plant-based diet] and the improvements are spectacular. The obesity starts to melt away, the arteries open up, the high blood pressure comes down, the joints stop hurting, the skin clears up, the lungs stop wheezing, the bowels start working and people turn into normal, healthy people that don't have diabetes, that don't have aches and pains and they don't need medications and pills and procedures; you just see them at the health food store and on the bike path, which is just where I want to see them."
Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I Love Nutritional Science
"It's like hitting yourself with a hammer every day and giving your hand a big smash, and the hand gets swollen and full of pain and you go to a doctor and get pain medications for it, and then the next day you take a big hammer and hit it again." (He's talking about treating chronic diseases with drugs, when the cause of the disease is diet.)
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Resolving the Health Care Crisis
"It's also about using this same type of diet to treat existing disease. That is to say, this kind of diet prevents, suspends --that means stops the further progression -- and/or cures, all these diseases. We can now cure heart disease. We can cure type II diabetes."
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyne, Making Heart Attacks History
"Coronary Artery Disease is the leading killer of women and men in western civilization, and yet the truth be known, it is nothing more than a toothless paper tiger that need never exist, and if it does exist, it need never, ever progress. This is a food-borne illness."
Dr. John McDougall, The Food We Were Born to Eat
"I'm Doctor John McDougall. I've been in this business for 44 years. And I'm the luckiest doctor in the world, because my patients get well."
Dr. Dean Ornish 7 Billion Well
"We did a study with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering telomerase, which is an enzyme that repairs and lengthens damaged telomeres at the ends of our chromosomes, that control how long we live, and what we found was that the telomerase could increase by 30% in just three months, and no study has shown that. And we're about to publish the 5 year follow-up showing that the telomeres themselves actually get longer when you make these changes, and this will be the first study to show that, as well. If this were a new drug that could lengthen your telomeres, it would be a multi-billion dollar drug overnight, but it's the same lifestyle changes that do all these things."
Interviews With Other Doctors
Dr. Lim, Director at the McDougall Health & Medical Centre
"The biggest surprise for me, in observing my patients who have adopted a whole food plant based diet is that they have actually been able to not just control or manage, but reverse their chronic illness, while coming off their medication, and that's just radical and revolutionary."
Dr. Kim Williams, past president of the American Cardiology Association
"To tell an African-American or Hispanic to change their diet, I'm attacking them, their family, their church, everybody... The best thing for that is a vegan daughter. Somebody's got a vegan daughter, I've got them."
"There are two kinds of cardiologists: vegans and those who haven't read the data."
Dr. Michael Greger
"Corrupt is the wrong word. Stockholders trying to maximize quarterly profits, is that corrupt? No, it's how the system works. The system is set up to incentivize the selling of junk. The system works by rewarding making people sick. ... If all of a sudden nobody had high blood pressure anymore, the Big Pharma loses, the doctor loses, the hospitals lose; the whole system loses, no one's buying anything that's profiting shareholders. It's not corruption, it's just how the system works. But we can take personal responsibility for our own health. It's a matter of life and death."
Dr. Neal Barnard, Plant-Based Nutrition Essentials
"The people in the experimental group did say, 'It took me some getting used to. It was maybe four, five or six weeks before this diet really felt second nature to me. But, I am never stopping this. My chest pain was gone, very fast, I'm losing weight, without counting calories, I've got more energy than I've had before, and my numbers are the best they've ever been.' ... What we concluded was that all interventions do require effort, and a plant-based diet isn't harder than any other ... we find that if you don't have to have calorie, portion or carb limits and people get benefits, people really do want to stick with it."
Websites
The Food Revolution Network Started by John Robbins and his son, Ocean Robbins. John Robbins walked away from the family ice cream business (ever hear of Baskin-Robbins?) in order to research, teach, and organize a fact-based health food revolution.
Plant Pure Nation Besides gathering data from studies and references in one, easy-to-read place, these guys will help you transition to WFPB eating if you don't mind buying meals through the mail. I haven't tried it, but I'm curious.
The Plantfit Summit Going on right now. Totally Free!(Edit to Add: okay, it's over now, but they do these periodically)
Forks Over Knives Meal Planner This thing is the tool that let me finally go plant-based.
Nutrition Facts dot org Dr. Gregor's free updates on the latest in nutritional information, totally unsponsored, just his annoying voice and pics of the journals where the studies are published. This guy became a doctor because his grandmother was "at death's door" with heart disease in her 60s, and she was saved by Dr. Pritikin using diet.
21 day meal planner to "kickstart" vegan eating
Neal Barnard has this website and a free meal planner with celebrities who are vegans -- no, really -- showing you how to make their favorite recipes.
Goodbye Lupus Dr. Brooke Goldner healed herself of Lupus using plant-based nutrition, so she started using nutrition in her own healing work.
Books
Blue Zones; Lessons for Living Longer by the People Who've Lived the Longest, by Dan Buettner
The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell
The Food Revolution, by John Robbins and Dean Ornish, MD
How Not to Die, by Michael Greger
The Pleasure Trap, by Douglas J. Lisle
So, here I am bringing it up, because I truly believe I have found something that can make a huge difference in the lives of many of my friends. I stumbled into a website called The Food Revolution, and from there, I learned about a Whole Food Plant-Based (WFPB) diet. There's an amazing amount of evidence that eating plants -- fruits, grains, vegetables and nuts/seeds -- can literally reverse heart disease and diabetes. It protects against them, if you don't have them yet, and against Alzheimers and even cancer. ( Read more... )
Edit to Add: I obviously failed to post with comments turned off. I think that may be a paid feature, and I no longer have a paid account.
Documentaries
Forks Over Knives
Available on Netflix.
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
What the Health
Earthlings
(These last two I have not seen yet, but they are frequently referenced.)
Ted Talks
Dr. Michael Klaper, The Most Powerful Strategy for Healing People and the Planet
"30 days, 60 days, 90 days of that fuel mix [a whole foods plant-based diet] and the improvements are spectacular. The obesity starts to melt away, the arteries open up, the high blood pressure comes down, the joints stop hurting, the skin clears up, the lungs stop wheezing, the bowels start working and people turn into normal, healthy people that don't have diabetes, that don't have aches and pains and they don't need medications and pills and procedures; you just see them at the health food store and on the bike path, which is just where I want to see them."
Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I Love Nutritional Science
"It's like hitting yourself with a hammer every day and giving your hand a big smash, and the hand gets swollen and full of pain and you go to a doctor and get pain medications for it, and then the next day you take a big hammer and hit it again." (He's talking about treating chronic diseases with drugs, when the cause of the disease is diet.)
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Resolving the Health Care Crisis
"It's also about using this same type of diet to treat existing disease. That is to say, this kind of diet prevents, suspends --that means stops the further progression -- and/or cures, all these diseases. We can now cure heart disease. We can cure type II diabetes."
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyne, Making Heart Attacks History
"Coronary Artery Disease is the leading killer of women and men in western civilization, and yet the truth be known, it is nothing more than a toothless paper tiger that need never exist, and if it does exist, it need never, ever progress. This is a food-borne illness."
Dr. John McDougall, The Food We Were Born to Eat
"I'm Doctor John McDougall. I've been in this business for 44 years. And I'm the luckiest doctor in the world, because my patients get well."
Dr. Dean Ornish 7 Billion Well
"We did a study with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering telomerase, which is an enzyme that repairs and lengthens damaged telomeres at the ends of our chromosomes, that control how long we live, and what we found was that the telomerase could increase by 30% in just three months, and no study has shown that. And we're about to publish the 5 year follow-up showing that the telomeres themselves actually get longer when you make these changes, and this will be the first study to show that, as well. If this were a new drug that could lengthen your telomeres, it would be a multi-billion dollar drug overnight, but it's the same lifestyle changes that do all these things."
Interviews With Other Doctors
Dr. Lim, Director at the McDougall Health & Medical Centre
"The biggest surprise for me, in observing my patients who have adopted a whole food plant based diet is that they have actually been able to not just control or manage, but reverse their chronic illness, while coming off their medication, and that's just radical and revolutionary."
Dr. Kim Williams, past president of the American Cardiology Association
"To tell an African-American or Hispanic to change their diet, I'm attacking them, their family, their church, everybody... The best thing for that is a vegan daughter. Somebody's got a vegan daughter, I've got them."
"There are two kinds of cardiologists: vegans and those who haven't read the data."
Dr. Michael Greger
"Corrupt is the wrong word. Stockholders trying to maximize quarterly profits, is that corrupt? No, it's how the system works. The system is set up to incentivize the selling of junk. The system works by rewarding making people sick. ... If all of a sudden nobody had high blood pressure anymore, the Big Pharma loses, the doctor loses, the hospitals lose; the whole system loses, no one's buying anything that's profiting shareholders. It's not corruption, it's just how the system works. But we can take personal responsibility for our own health. It's a matter of life and death."
Dr. Neal Barnard, Plant-Based Nutrition Essentials
"The people in the experimental group did say, 'It took me some getting used to. It was maybe four, five or six weeks before this diet really felt second nature to me. But, I am never stopping this. My chest pain was gone, very fast, I'm losing weight, without counting calories, I've got more energy than I've had before, and my numbers are the best they've ever been.' ... What we concluded was that all interventions do require effort, and a plant-based diet isn't harder than any other ... we find that if you don't have to have calorie, portion or carb limits and people get benefits, people really do want to stick with it."
Websites
The Food Revolution Network Started by John Robbins and his son, Ocean Robbins. John Robbins walked away from the family ice cream business (ever hear of Baskin-Robbins?) in order to research, teach, and organize a fact-based health food revolution.
Plant Pure Nation Besides gathering data from studies and references in one, easy-to-read place, these guys will help you transition to WFPB eating if you don't mind buying meals through the mail. I haven't tried it, but I'm curious.
The Plantfit Summit Going on right now. Totally Free!(Edit to Add: okay, it's over now, but they do these periodically)
Forks Over Knives Meal Planner This thing is the tool that let me finally go plant-based.
Nutrition Facts dot org Dr. Gregor's free updates on the latest in nutritional information, totally unsponsored, just his annoying voice and pics of the journals where the studies are published. This guy became a doctor because his grandmother was "at death's door" with heart disease in her 60s, and she was saved by Dr. Pritikin using diet.
21 day meal planner to "kickstart" vegan eating
Neal Barnard has this website and a free meal planner with celebrities who are vegans -- no, really -- showing you how to make their favorite recipes.
Goodbye Lupus Dr. Brooke Goldner healed herself of Lupus using plant-based nutrition, so she started using nutrition in her own healing work.
Books
Blue Zones; Lessons for Living Longer by the People Who've Lived the Longest, by Dan Buettner
The China Study, by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell
The Food Revolution, by John Robbins and Dean Ornish, MD
How Not to Die, by Michael Greger
The Pleasure Trap, by Douglas J. Lisle
A Very Classy Sign-Off
Aug. 23rd, 2018 09:12 amFor eleven years I have met monthly with a writers' critique group. We call ourselves the Fictionistas. Our most successful member, in terms of publishing, is T.E. Woods (Teri). We have helped her plot and edit around ten murder mystery books. About this time last year, she was diagnosed with Stage IV head and neck cancer. At the time she told us it was Stage III, which would mean she might have a chance, but in her Facebook sign-off she said it was stage IV from the start. She and her husband accelerated their retirement plans: retired from their respective therapy practices, sold the house, and threw money at fixing up their retirement home in northern Wisconsin. I was able to visit them there for a few hours last month. They were able to enjoy a few months of the retirement they'd planned, together. They had a new cockapoo.
Yesterday, though, her Facebook friends saw this post:
( Read more... )
She did manage to finish her last book, The Wrong Sister, and come to town for a book signing in May. She hadn't been expecting to live even that long.
Good-bye my friend. The Fictionistas will try to continue without our most talented member.
Here's where you can find her books on Amazon. (How did she write ten books in eleven years?)
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=T.E.+Woods
Yesterday, though, her Facebook friends saw this post:
( Read more... )
She did manage to finish her last book, The Wrong Sister, and come to town for a book signing in May. She hadn't been expecting to live even that long.
Good-bye my friend. The Fictionistas will try to continue without our most talented member.
Here's where you can find her books on Amazon. (How did she write ten books in eleven years?)
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=T.E.+Woods
Hello, flooding!
Aug. 21st, 2018 10:34 pmHuh. Eleven inches of rain fell on my neighborhood last night, and at least 13 inches fell in areas just west of me. 16 inches on one small town. This started around 3:00 and lasted until about 11:00. So that's in 8 hours. There was this low pressure area that just froze on top of us and spun and spun.
The ground was so saturated that the window well outside our basement escape window -- which makes our AirBnB guest room legal -- filled up with water from the ground up to three inches higher than the bottom of the window. Which, it turns out, is not watertight. Water poured into our guest room, while we had a guest there, no less. Sigh. So, along with the rest of the town, we are ShopVac-ing and blowing high powered fans in our basement. Also dousing the carpeting with vinegar in the hopes of killing any mold that might be starting. It's worked before, but this time we might need all new carpet.
There's actually a chance we could be declared a state or even federal disaster area. The kind of water that dropped on us was what you typically see from a hurricane.
During a lull in the rain, I took Sam out for a walk. It was actually sprinkling on us, but that counted as a lull. He wasn't crazy about going out, but he consented, and, with a lot of patience on my part, he got around to pooping. I came home, and the real deluge began. By nightfall, I was SO grateful we'd gone out when we could. Of course, by nightfall our guest was housed in a room slowly filling with water from the escape well. I wonder what that review will be like.
The ground was so saturated that the window well outside our basement escape window -- which makes our AirBnB guest room legal -- filled up with water from the ground up to three inches higher than the bottom of the window. Which, it turns out, is not watertight. Water poured into our guest room, while we had a guest there, no less. Sigh. So, along with the rest of the town, we are ShopVac-ing and blowing high powered fans in our basement. Also dousing the carpeting with vinegar in the hopes of killing any mold that might be starting. It's worked before, but this time we might need all new carpet.
There's actually a chance we could be declared a state or even federal disaster area. The kind of water that dropped on us was what you typically see from a hurricane.
During a lull in the rain, I took Sam out for a walk. It was actually sprinkling on us, but that counted as a lull. He wasn't crazy about going out, but he consented, and, with a lot of patience on my part, he got around to pooping. I came home, and the real deluge began. By nightfall, I was SO grateful we'd gone out when we could. Of course, by nightfall our guest was housed in a room slowly filling with water from the escape well. I wonder what that review will be like.
We have a new dog!
Aug. 17th, 2018 10:28 pmAfter many decades of being cat people, we decided our new furperson should be a dog. Interestingly, it's really difficult to get a dog around here. I'm proud to say, people in my city and, I guess, surrounding areas, do such a good job of spaying and neutering, that we just don't have many shelter dogs. The humane society has to have them shipped in from other places. As a consequence, there are independent rescue organizations in the area. Mom and I had to fill out a more rigorous application than I've filled out for some jobs in order to be eligible. They interviewed our references and my veterinarian. There was a home visit to interview us. Once we were approved, we were allowed to make a selection from among dogs on their website. They rescue dogs from Houston, TX and foster them in the Houston area. They spay and neuter, vaccinate, and usually treat for heartworm, since that's so often a problem. Once there's an owner for them here, they transport them to fosters in our area. Mom and I had a "meet and greet" last week with THE CUTEST LITTLE GUY, and 24 hours later he was ours.
Our new dog is named Sam. He is named for Samwise Gamgee and Samwell Tarley, two loyal, courageous friends. He is a terrier mix of some kind. Here's a photo from the first evening he spent with us.
We don't have a fenced yard, so we are up and walking the dog in the morning. It's kind of a shock to the system. Sam is both curious and fearful of anything new. He's had a week to "decompress" and get comfortable with us and our house, now. Next it's time to try some training. But first we have to get trained in how to do that, heh. To the You Tube!
Our new dog is named Sam. He is named for Samwise Gamgee and Samwell Tarley, two loyal, courageous friends. He is a terrier mix of some kind. Here's a photo from the first evening he spent with us.
We don't have a fenced yard, so we are up and walking the dog in the morning. It's kind of a shock to the system. Sam is both curious and fearful of anything new. He's had a week to "decompress" and get comfortable with us and our house, now. Next it's time to try some training. But first we have to get trained in how to do that, heh. To the You Tube!
A Wrinkle in Time!
Feb. 13th, 2018 09:42 pmI just saw a trailer for A Wrinkle in Time, and MEG IS BLACK!
I'm so happy I'm crying.
I'm so happy I'm crying.
(no subject)
Jan. 24th, 2018 11:06 amIf my father had lived past age 51, he'd be 81 today. Hard to imagine him that old.
https://imgur.com/Swl02T8
https://imgur.com/Swl02T8
Good Luck NaNo participants!!!
Oct. 31st, 2017 01:23 pmOn your marks ...
I think I'll try a mini-nano this year.
I think I'll try a mini-nano this year.
Movie Rec: Netflix original film
Nov. 28th, 2016 09:54 pmTrue Memoirs of an International Assassin
A self-published author of a first person "memoir" is then repeatedly mistaken for an assassin. Very funny!
A self-published author of a first person "memoir" is then repeatedly mistaken for an assassin. Very funny!
