Thursday, July 10, 2008

Sheeple/People and Global Warming


I'm using this particular blog as a bully pulpit. Just something I need to say, and at the same time, I do encourage some feed-back. Jump right in! Just click on comments at the bottom of this dissertation and hammer away!

Wikipedia says that “The implication of sheeple is that they are a collective people who believe whatever they are told, especially if told so by authority figures, without processing it to be sure that it is an accurate representation of the real world around them. The term is generally used in a political or religious sense.”

Let me just expound on that a bit. Sheeple are people who need so desperately to find a place to belong that they become one of those collective people who will join any group or cause that won’t turn their backs on them or kick them out. There are also Sheeple who are just lonely lost souls who want so desperately to belong somewhere, that they will join any one of many, many twelve step programs mostly because they aren’t usually kicked out. They are actually told, "Keep coming back!" Don’t get me wrong. I thank God that there are twelve-step programs. A bunch of us would certainly be lost if not for these organizations. Would we not? They serve a purpose, and help solve many problems of society. Many, many people have been saved from their own demise by these wonderful organizations.

However, I suspect that most of the sheeple that I speak of have some personality conflicts that seem to rub most prospective friends and organizations the wrong way. They don’t bother to check out facts before they decide to join in the march. They are so lonely and lost that they will jump into any group, feinting support and enthusiasm in order to be accepted. Sometimes They actually accept what they are told as the whole truth…no matter what, and they sometimes get a little over zealous.

For example, many years ago, I was taking my daughter to her obstetrics appointment. She was 8.5 months pregnant with her first child, and was starting to resemble a Conestoga wagon stumbling along on a prairie, riddled with gopher holes. Poor thing wasn’t really in good shape to drive, so I drove her. As we approached the parking area of the doctor’s building, there were Pro-Life marchers carrying signs and pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of the building. I parked the car, and we started towards the office building. As we neared, a man carrying a Pro-Life sign with a picture of a fetus on it came running up to us. Before we could dodge the guy, he was in our faces screaming, “Don’t do it! This is a child of God that deserves to live!!” We elbowed our way to the door past the man, but not before I shot him a barb of, “Can’t you see this woman is desperate!?” The Man’s jaw dropped down and he backed off. The elements of surpirse and shock stunned him momentarily. Apparently, there was or had been an abortion clinic in that building; and apparently this man was one of the Sheeple People of whom I speak.

That having been said, I will describe another type of sheeple. These are people who can’t seem to define themselves, so they define themselves by whatever popular belief is going around. Yes, here it comes! The Global Warming Sheeple. These are people who really want to find a blame to hang on someone or some thing for what this planet is doing. Listen up! The global warming thing is really happening, but people cannot cause this to happen. We should have seen this coming. History repeats itself, and we haven’t been paying attention. This planet is not doing anything it hasn’t done before. After all, it’s just history. We have just not been prepared for it.

There are natural occurrences that cause plenty of problems. Volcanoes erupt and throw off lava, magma and volcanic ash, all of which can be very hazardous. Cracks open up in the ocean and leak oil into the oceans on a regular basis. Cracks open up in our earth and release gasses and chemicals every day. What do you think Old Faithful is, a perfume factory? Tectonic plates move around and re-arrange continents. Hurricanes, and tsunamis hit our coast lines and destroy what we’ve built. Tornados will uproot whole towns. Weather changes and we can't stop it. At best, we can try to prepare for it.

There are also problems that we’ve caused ourselves, and we can certainly do something about that that. To be fair, we do need to recycle. We need to figure out what to do with our garbage. Last I heard, New York City scows are cruising around full of garbage looking for a place to put it. We need to quit cutting down our rain forests. We need to clean up the air, and we need to do something about the huge problem of American Gasoline / Energy Glut, and the lack of product thereof; find new sources and resources.

We have not caused global warming. So, let’s quit trying to lay the blame somewhere, and just do something about it! Let’s quit being a nation of Sheeple and start looking at facts and history, do some research to see what can be done to take care of our selves and our planet. The answers are at our finger tips, and within our grasp. We can pollute the air, and we can push each other off of continents with over population; and we can destroy people and countries, but we cannot destroy this planet. Why do we all of a sudden think that we’ve caused this global warming cycle? Why do we even think we’re powerful enough to do that?

Monday, July 7, 2008

POMEGRANATE WARS



Just grab one, rip it open with your teeth, and lob it at the enemy… hard! Running as fast as I could, I caught one anyway right between the shoulder blades. That one stung! I knew who threw that one. It was Bobby, the kid down the street. So, I ran around the other side of the house to pick up more artillery. Snagging three, I ripped one of them open with my teeth. I couldn’t resist taking a big juicy bite before lobbing it over the fence at my cousin. I nailed him right on top of the head. The next one was for Bobby. Thwap! Got him! Right in the middle of his clean white t-shirt! The stain was set. His mom will be really mad!

Pomegranate wars were the best! The only time we had more fun with them is when we went by one of the three or four big bushes and collected a shirt full of the grenades to take over the hill. This is where the war games were the most fun. We actually had tall grass and bamboo cane to hide in. After this particular war, we all congregated around the old hackberry tree in the back yard. All of us were covered and dripping in the blood-red pomegranate juice. Some of us actually re-ran the course to pick up used “ammunition”. Then, we’d take turns hosing each other down before our grandmother could see the mess we’d made with the pomegranates. “You kids! I'm gonna jerk a knot in someone's tail, if you don't leave my pomegranate bushes alone! You’re ruining them….just ruining them!” I’m really surprised that there aren’t pomegranate bushes growing wild over the hillside where we used to play.

If we’d only known then, just exactly how precious that particular fruit would be today, or that it contained nutrients and antioxidants….things that would be beneficial to all of us. Perhaps it just wasn’t known then, even by medical science. We’d never heard of antioxidants. The only thing we new about those things is that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” and orange juice had all the vitamin C we would need for the day. Carrots would enable us to have x-ray vision, milk had calcium and grew strong bones, and vegetables provided vitamins, minerals and roughage. That’s what our parents and grandparents would tell us, and so it was.

There used to be an old man named Mr. Wood that would come by in a beat up old pick up truck. I’d say he was in his mid 40’s to early 50’s. That was old to us in the mid to late 50’s. The back of his truck was loaded up with produce of all kinds, from tomatoes, green beans and squash to sugar cane, rutabaga and yes pomegranates. Mr. Wood would drive slowly down the street ringing a cow bell, calling everyone out to come pick out what they wanted to buy off the truck. We’d all run out to see what he had, because he’d always give us kids a bite of something sweet….usually a wedge of watermelon or a stick of sugar cane each. The cost of the produce was always reasonable, if not just down right cheap. You could fill up a grocery store basket off the back of Mr. Wood’s truck for less than $5. "Them's real good tomaters, Ms. Lewis."

Look at just how far we’ve come today! It’s been discovered that pomegranates are useful for things other than hillside warfare. However, if you check out the prices at any grocery store, you will see that a quart bottle of this fruity elixir will run you at least $9. The raw fruits I’ve seen are at least $3 each. I can only attribute this to demand. The demand is prompted by what medical science has found out about it. It’s loaded with antioxidants, not to mention all the vitamins. It may prevent and control prostate cancer, reduce the risk of breast cancer and other cancers, improves blood flow to the heart, reduces plaque in the arteries, prevents heart disease and reduces the risk of heart attacks. And that’s just for starters.

Pomegranates are well suited to a semi-desert environment as well as a semi-tropical environment. You can have them at your beck and call. They’re easy to grow, and can be harvested in the fall through January. If you’ve got a juicer, you can have pomegranate juice year round for the simple cost of the bush you’ve planted. Well, if you freeze the juice you can have it year round.

Berries of all kinds are like pure gold today. They are also high in antioxidants and have various curative properties. Cherries are good for taking care of joint inflammation. The produce aisle of any grocery store is almost like walking through a natural pharmacy. There’s something to fix what ever ails a person. And, this is separate and apart from what’s been sectioned off and called the “Health Food Section”. Is this supposed to mean that they’re finally admitting that all the processed foods in the rest of the store isn’t really as good for you as they originally said it was?

I can truly say that eating healthy is almost as expensive as going to the doctor, or picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy. But, I’d much rather eat foods that are beneficial to my health than take medicine prescribed by a doctor. Doctors would rather you take the medicine they prescribe. I guess that’s because they don’t have time to read all there is to know about the benefits of natural food.

Medical science is always coming up with new information every day about various foods and what they’ve discovered they can do. Green tea is said to open up your arteries. We’ve always known honey is a natural antibiotic. It’s better to eat honey that’s been collected in your geographic area because it’s beneficial to easing airborne allergies. There’s just no end to the benefits of natural foods.

If you think the cost of the fruit is too much, look it up on line. Find out the nutritional values, and medicinal properties. An ounce of prevention is worth a lot these days. Then, go to a local produce stand. It's more reasonable there. And every body listen up, especially all you Baby Boomers! I’ve heard on the news that watermelons are the new natural Viagra. And, I always thought it was pumpkin pie.