Appetizer recipes & little animals

We've invited our friends to after-opera socials at our place, so I'm looking for wonderful appetizer recipes today. What a lot of fun.

The operas are live from the Met on HD at our local alternative theater, and two (including Carmen) are coming up in January. Finally, we can live in the woods and still have some culture.

In the meantime, Rick is plugging up a hole in the attic to keep the little animals out (order rodentia) -- one of the drawbacks of living here.

The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization

I'm looking forward to reading the book, The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization by Bryan Ward-Perkins, especially after being impressed so much some years back by one of Jack Whyte's fiction books about Camelot, where he went into vivid description of how the leaders in a British hamlet struggled to keep their culture intact after they were cut off from Roman civilization upon the collapse of the empire. How the memories of a high culture faded away as the paved roads were cracked by weeds, and how diminishing resources brought out the fear and selfish desperation in people, making it hard to keep them bound together in a sharing community. And how, eventually, the community had to give up on maintaining some of its higher standards, especially those involving education and arts, when in the struggle to survive people no longer remembered the finer things of life.

Bryan Ward-Perkins' nonfiction work on this collapse of civilization in the fifth century will hopefully give us insights we can use today when (unseen and unacknowledged by many) the very foundations of our own civilization might be in jeopardy.

This is one of my reasons to do volunteer work for our local arts council, writing grant proposals to keep the joys of creative efforts alive for our community and those who visit us. We can make a difference.

Happy anniversary to us on our 20th year of marriage

Ok, so we've been together for 22 years, but 20 years ago at noon today in a little park in Monterey, California, we made that final commitment to each other. We're glad we did so.

I have a ton of anniversary cards from Rick laying around the house that I don't have the heart to throw away, and finally suggested a couple of years ago that we exchange email messages instead. That has turned out to be a wonderful system for us, and gives us a pulse point on our evolution together as well. I'll treasure these messages always.

Re. Goldman Sachs: Why aren't these guys in jail?

Another infuriating exposure of the treachery of Goldman Sachs. This New York Times article is long, but should be read. And, of course, they are not in jail because they own our government. This is TREASON, pure and simple.

Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/24trading.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all

“The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. “When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else’s house and then committing arson.”

End of year depression - or, why I haven't blogged recently

The only year I wasn't depressed between Thanksgiving and Christmas was 2005, while I was writing my first book and was in a state of perpetual elation. (Footnote: I reread it in January and saw that it lacked on all counts, but that's another story -- .)

I'm also fighting flu this time and have been for the past week. Rick just left to visit his mother and won't be back until sunset tomorrow, but he cooked a lot of yummy food for me before he left. Since I've never been much of one for holidays anyway, I'm actually looking forward to the alone time, studying EFT and watching the DVDs, staying up late (so all the creaks in the house won't scare me -- note to myself: don't read John Connelly or Stephen King), bonding with my cat, Hunter (or Honey Hunner, since he's been pussified), and keeping the fire built up to stay warm.

I also need to work on enhancing my creativity, a project for the next year. I am not satisfied with my current level of fiction-writing skill.

Researching training for grant proposal writing is on my list, too. My first day as a volunteer is January 8.

Actually, I must be feeling better, to want to do these things.

As a footnote, I joined the National Center for Homeopathy so I now have access to their amazing database and have done some exploring. Homeopathy, like EFT, is a form of energy medicine, and I've been helped by what little I've used of it so far. Now, I'm going to tackle big problems, like the nerve pain in my leg. One of these days I want to go to an opera without fidgeting in my seat or having to elevate my leg, as I had to over the weekend.

Also need to roll with the financial punches. A couple of days ago, one of our tenants broke their lease. Having a new tenant in the YSP place every year really cuts into the bottom line, when we can least afford it.

So onward!

Starting the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

Yesterday, after a month and a half of not working for HP, I finally got around to studying materials on the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and read the materials I purchased and downloaded a few months ago. I watched the video yesterday afternoon and stayed up late reading the book, TryItOnEverything.

After I went through a session today, I took my morning walk and got more ideas while walking. So I worked on the EFT while I was doing my walk and it worked very well. What a great system! Instead of being bored while I'm walking, I now have something productive I can do at the same time.

This means I will be a lot more willing to exercise. I'm keeping a log of my EFT practice, and already see my way clear on accomplishing a lot of self-healing. The people at that four-day retreat who were filmed in the movie I watched yesterday really inspired me with their progress, and I'm fairly certain I can do it, too. If I can't, well then I'll seek out a practitioner to help me, but I have the clinical advantage in having known myself so well for so long.

Here are some links:

EFT Founder, Gary Craig's, website

http://www.emofree.com/

The Choices Alternative, as presented by Dr. Mercola. While you're there, click on the other links--he has almost 40 pages of instruction altogether.

http://www.mercola.com/forms/eftcourse7.htm

Elizabeth Warren Nominated For 2010 MSN Butterfly Award

I so totally agree with this nomination and I cast my vote for her. I've watched several video clips of Elizabeth Warren speaking and not only does she make a lot of sense but she also seems to be a warm, friendly, compassionate person. She really impresses me as a genuine heroine of our times.

Here is what Huffington Post has to say:

Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to monitor the bank bailouts under TARP, and a Huffington Post blogger, has been nominated for a 2010 MSN Butterfly Award..

According to MSN, the award goes to the person who "best exemplifies "the Butterfly effect" making a positive contribution that has an impact beyond their actions." Anyone can cast a vote or nominate a candidate online.

MSN will donate $10,000 to the charity of the winner's choice. Warren has chosen The National Consumer Law Center as her charity. Click here to see who else has been nominated and to cast your vote.

Scene 5 is done!

The first draft of Scene 5 is now complete. Now on to Scene 6, after I listen to a 20-minute relaxation CD Rick gave me for my birthday. The three-CD set is to be listened to over 21 days and I'll indicate at that time whether it fulfilled its purpose.

In the meantime, Rick is tackling his own household project, and that makes me very happy. We're hoping to get deferred stuff done before January so we can focus on more interesting things in life.

Unconventional military spending projects

According to ABC News and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an Ohio Air Force laboratory has asked the Pentagon for:

"$7.5 million to build a nonlethal 'gay bomb,' a weapon that would encourage enemies to make love, not war. The weapon would use strong aphrodisiacs to make enemy troops so sexually attracted to each other that they'd lose interest in fighting."

I'm especially fascinated by the 88-page report issued by the Air Force Research Lab on psychic teleportation. They contend that moving through space with mind powers is 'quite real and can be controlled.' I'm looking forward to the day that report is declassified!

See the ABC News article here for other unconventional items. A fiction writer's dream!
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3299379

Cat with an eating disorder

Last May we got Tessa to help with ground-squirrel control. She is a great little hunter. When she came to us, she was practically starved, her little stomach was caved in and her little hip bones stuck out. We made sure she always had food available and she started eating all the time.

Now, she is fat and looks like a pumpkin as she waddles by.

What are we to do? If we take her food away, she will get the 'starvation complex' all hungry creatures get, eating even more so as not to starve again. When humans restrict their food, the body slows down its metabolism and tries to store as much fat as possible, and I imagine it would be the same for cats.

Poor little Tessa. Hopefully, she will learn someday that she is not going to starve ever again and the problem will take care of itself.

Britain Unveils Whopping Tax On Bank Bonuses; U.S. Windfall Tax Proposal Going Nowhere

Let's get this idea out into the mass consciousness and maybe it will result in the implementation of a much-needed windfall bonus tax (and also a windfall PROFITS tax) in the USA.
Britain Unveils Whopping Tax On Bank Bonuses; U.S. Windfall Tax Proposal Going Nowhere

The Huffington Post | Ryan McCarthy
First Posted: 12- 9-09 01:30 PM | Updated: 12- 9-09 03:58 PM

Vladimir Pasuikov - Do Not Reject Me In My Old Age

Hear Russian basso profondo Vladimir Pasuikov and the Male Choir of St. Petersburg at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzFrmQQiHWs&NR=1

Vladimir Pasuikov in this song, Do Not Reject Me In My Old Age, sings an octave below the normal bass register, an attribute of Russian Orthodox vocal music. This is indeed something profound to hear and makes me wonder how much of this exceptionally low range is due to practice and how much to heredity.

My husband's Greek Orthodox friend, JR, shared this YouTube clip with us.

Crisis = danger + opportunity

wēijī

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis.” One brush stroke stands for danger, the other for opportunity. In crisis, be aware of the danger, but recognize the opportunity.

—John F. Kennedy

According to Wikipedia, some scholars argue that the second syllable jī has many meanings, depending upon its context. In the case of wēijī the meaning of jī is closer to "crucial point" than to "opportunity."

Regardless of whether Kennedy's quote is "wishful thinking," as implied by Professor Mair in Wikipedia, I believe we must look for the opportunity in everything, including danger and the adversity we are collectively struck with in this economic crisis.

Most of all, we must try to focus our attention onto something other than economic travails, and stop feeding the sense of despair that is in the collective consciousness today. Easy to say, isn't it.

Struggle with the fifth scene

I am really struggling with scene 5 of my novel, where I bring several of the characters -- including a villian -- together. When this type of impasse happens, I tend to do other things, such as more research (yesterday) or household projects (today).

But tomorrow, I will get back to my real work and make some headway. I'll just 'write around the edges' until it all melds together and looks acceptable enough to move on to the next scene.

Pass the chocolate and reading, please. Time to call it a day.

Employment and Real GDP

Calculated risk posted a fascinating table today under Employment and Real GDP, projecting what the unemployment rate would be over the next year with several what-if GDP growth factors. This is a real eye-opener, and one of the reasons I monitor the Calculated Risk site daily. Please view his site directly for his assumptions and more information. I cannot recommend CR highly enough.

by CalculatedRisk on 12/06/2009 04:52:00 PM

Real GDP Growth	Percent Payroll Growth	Annual Payroll Growth (000s)	Monthly Payroll Growth (000s)	Approximate Unemployment Rate in One Year
6.0%	3.5%	4,563	380	8.0% to 8.3%
5.0%	2.8%	3,684	307	8.6% to 8.9%
4.0%	2.1%	2,806	234	9.1% to 9.4%
3.0%	1.5%	1,928	161	9.7% to 10.0%
2.0%	0.8%	1,049	87	10.3% to 10.6%
1.0%	0.1%	171	14	10.8% to 11.1%

Varshavyanka & Hymn to Red October on YouTube

Rick is away doing repairs at one of the rentals today, so I played one of my favorite Russian martial songs, Varshavyanka. One thing led to another, and I found it on YouTube, with the lyrics and film clips. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hSAuf20XIo It apparently originated in the Russian Revolution of 1917, for Lenin was featured prominently, inspiring the downtrodden workers to overturn the government.

What terrifies me today is that in our attempts to overthrow our own 'masters,' the corporate and banking fascists, our revolt might also be taken over by forces that could be just as bad or worse. Think of the French Revolution and Napoleon. What can we do? South America has struggled with this problem for decades; their distrust of government has been historically worse than ours.

So how can we trust the next person who promises CHANGE not to betray us, as Obama has, now that we've learned he is just another tool of the oligarchs?

But before I get off on a political rant, my venture into Russian music this morning led to my finding another terrific song, the Hymn to Red October, which I downloaded from Amazon for 99 cents. Here is a link for it on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPsL2WVhFCc&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Distracted by housework

No progress at all on the book today, unless I get ambitious and work on it this evening. Distracted by a little home reorganization -- its about time, and is my project for December.

Bernanke tells Congress it can always repeal Social Security and Medicare

Here is news that simply makes me livid. The Federal Reserve gave trillions of tax dollars to the banking establishment, and now Bernanke tells Congress they can pay for it by ending Social Security and Medicare. And by the way, this was NOT picked up by the New York Times or CNN, so many Americans won't even know Bernanke said such a thing. This excerpt comes from the Huffington Post Blog:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/bernanke-channels-willie_n_378963.html

In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee today, where he's seeking re-appointment as the Fed's chairman, Bernanke called for cutbacks in Medicare and Social Security even as unemployment rises and the middle class is endangered. [The link is to Elizabeth Warren's article, America Without a Middle Class.]

Citing legendary bank robber Willie Sutton, Bernanke said of the retirement and health care funds that are the legacy of the New Deal: "That's where the money is."

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) sympathized with Bernanke, saying that, because of entitlement spending, "you're going to be looking at a situation where the Congress will be unable to provide any kind of fiscal discipline because of the mandatory spending. That puts an enormous burden on your plate."

"Well, Senator, I was about to address entitlements," Bernanke replied. "I think you can't tackle the problem in the medium term without doing something about getting entitlements under control and reducing the costs, particularly of health care."

Bernanke reminded Congress that it has the power to repeal Social Security and Medicare.

"It's only mandatory until Congress says it's not mandatory. And we have no option but to address those costs at some point or else we will have an unsustainable situation," said Bernanke.

... and here's more--check out this video and partial transcript for Senator Jim Bunning's statements to Bernanke:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Senator Bunning to Bernanke "You are the definition of a moral hazard. Your Fed has become the Creature From Jeckyll Island"

Chairman Greenspan sold the Fed's independence to Wall Street on the so called "Greenspan PUT". Whenever Wall Street needed a boost, Alan was there. But you went even farther than that when you bowed to the political pressure of the Bush and Obama Administrations, and turned the Fed into an arm of the Treasury.

Under your watch the "Bernanke PUT" became a bailout for all large financial institutions, including many foreign banks.

And you put the printing presses into overdrive to fund the government's spending and hand out cheap money to your masters on Wall Street.

In short, you are the definition of a moral hazard.

You are repeating the same mistakes as Japan in the 1990's on a much larger scale while sowing the seeds for the next bubble.

The AIG bailout alone is reason enough to send you back to Princeton.

Fiction writing progress

Today I worked on smoothing out my first scenes and developing the characters of Ravi and Danae, adding text where necessary. For some strange reason, I seem to make my secondary characters more vibrant and I will really be sad when George is killed. But the reincarnation aspect of the story will mitigate that somewhat, for both me and Danae.

Tomorrow I'll face a more intense scene, one that will be hard to do so I think part of my work today was simply done to postpone having to do the next scene.

I also received those nice file baskets and organized my financial office space a bit -- felt good. Rick did some work on the garage this afternoon. We are gradually taking care of some of the deferred work around the property, put off when we were both too busy with work.

I forgot to take my 1/2 blood pressure pill today, but it turned out I didn't need it. I wonder if no longer working for HP is lowering my BP. I'm certainly not as tired anymore, but I still have PHN.

Tom Hayden says Afghanistan is the last straw

Doesn't this picture say it all?

Hayden: "Time to strip Obama sticker off my car"

Old-school liberal says the president's decision on Afghanistan is the last straw

--Alex Koppelman

Why Kalliope? And why am I blogging?

Kalliope is the Muse of heroic poetry. Now, granted, I don't write poetry, but I do try to write heroic fiction.

Last week I finished my outline of The Oracle, my new novel. This outline took a month to do, several hours each day.

Today, I wrote my first three scenes. I am out of practice so I will rewrite ... and rewrite ... but at least my ideas after my walk beat my ideas before my walk, so I'm thrilled to make a little bit of progress in one day.

This blog will describe my voyage.

Plus a few other thoughts along the way. Like why are we letting Obama send 30,000 more young troops to Afghanistan, when we should be pulling our country out of war altogether and doing something to rebuild our own nation. As if we could ever rebuild Afghanistan. What hubris!

Finally people will realize that the Democrats and the Republicans are owned by the same masters -- those profiteering banks and corporations that are enslaving the rest of us.

Onward to tomorrow.

Hello from the California Sierras

Hello from the Sierra foothills of California. What a year this has been! When things settle down a bit, I will be back to continue this venture into blog-land.