My Blog Reflects The ‘Real World’
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 4th, 2010
Vince: In regards to your request, I will never bite the bullet and screen my blog. The last thing that I want my blog to be is unauthentic and artificial. What I hear on the blog is what I hear outside in the real world. My blog reflects the real world, and that’s how it should be.
Just the other day while Doug and I were riding the ferry going to San Francisco, we were passing San Quentin Jail, and a group of guys going to the baseball game starting making comments. I listened to a man say, “I don’t feel sorry for any one in there. They all deserve to be there.” Now how does he know that? So many people are convicted of crimes that they did not commit, and so many criminals are never convicted that are guilty. How can one make such a cold bold blanket statement? I looked at him, a white guy, and then my eyes were drawn to his arm where I noticed he had a tattoo of the face of a Bull dog against the American flag. I looked at Doug, ‘Just noticing’, not judging.
He then started joking with an older couple visiting from the midwest. I lost track of their conversation amongst his other friends joking and laughing around him. But the one thing I did hear was that this guy was a cop. And then the last thing that I heard come out of his mouth, and said with pride: “Oh yeah and I was in Texas. Those people down there, they’re a lot more prejudice than you and me.” He and the couple began to laugh. I was disgusted.
This cop not only admitted that he was a racist, but expressed pride that he’s not as racist as the people in Texas. So I guess he feels his racist attitude can be excused because there are people who are more racist than him? Since when is a degree of racism okay? Like Minnie said, ‘We keep our niggers under control but we treat them with compassion.” That’s like a murderer saying, “Leave me alone. I only killed one person. Arrest the guy down the street; he killed more than I did.” They’ll say and do whatever is needed to justify their racism. And this cop has the prefect job to act out his racism. Feeling safe and cozy now in the real world?
So why should I have an artificial world here and not reflect what the real world is like? Why should I make it all cozy so that people feel comfortable? The world is not always comfortable. In fact for many it is unfriendly and unsafe to say the least.
My blog is not like the many blogs out there that screen and edit as they see fit…so that no one is offended or no one’s feelings get hurt. People are offended and feelings get hurt in the real world. It should not be any different here on my blog. I am not delighted with some of the comments, actions or thoughts, on my blog, nor am I in the real world, but I allow them here because they are real.
Why should racists and sexists etc., not be allowed to express their viewpoint? We could live in a fantasy world and pretend that they don’t exist or that if we ignore them, they’ll disappear. Been there, done that. Guess what? They’re still here. Yes, ignorance is blissful, but it does nothing to advance the betterment of our world. It does nothing for those that are the target of the perpetrators. It is only for our own self; to make us feel better…to make us think that what exists out there is really not that bad.
I have news for you; it is that bad. And the more we are aware that there are many Leroys, Georges and Minnies of the world walking and living amongst us, the more that we can learn and power ourselves up…ban together and end the ‘isms’ that are destroying our country…our world. It is the only way.
If you don’t want to to feel uncomfortable….if you don’t want your buttons pushed, or a sick feeling to arise…or the disbelief that people can actually feel and act as they do towards each other, then perhaps you might want to find another blog to read, that suits your needs.
Vince, please don’t take my comments to you personally. They are said to all who have asked me before to censor my blog. I appreciate that you broached the subject again, as I have never given my answer much thought as I have done today. So I thank you for inspiring my write. And I hope that you will continue reading knowing that I will always be keeping it real.
*****************
Robert: You already know the answer to your statement. It’s not going to happen.
Floyd: Your words were meaningful and inspiring. Much more so than mine would’ve been had I chosen to respond to Leroy. I can see your heart, soul and mind are in the right place. If only words were enough….
Randoff: Thank you for your apology. As much as I did not expect one, of course I graciously and sincerely accept it. And please don’t feel that you reacted too cruelly. My skin has thickened quite a bit since I started this blog. I have endured much worse criticism than your quick witted response. :)
Again, thank you for the recognition and your words. I assure you they have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. And by the way, I’m addicted to my blog too. Now…before the entire staff starts to complain that I haven’t launched yet, I will end this post and wish you and all of my readers a beautiful day!
Peace out…
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my ‘loyal’(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the ‘Donate’ button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my ‘Donate’ page)
May 4th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
The One-Week Detox Diet
Shari Lieberman, PhD, CNS, FACN
Every minute of your life, your body is detoxifying — breaking down hundreds of hazardous chemicals that you breathe in or ingest.
To do this, your body relies on specific nutrients. Yet even if your everyday diet is reasonably healthful, your body faces an enormous toxic load.
Problem: The world is filled with synthetic toxins — industrial pollutants and car exhaust… fumes from copy machines and dry cleaning… foods grown with pesticides or processed with potentially harmful additives.
Chemicals in tobacco and alcohol increase the liver’s burden. Theory: Toxins in the body may lead to cell damage, increasing the risk for disease.
Solution: A one-week detoxification diet, followed four times a year, can give your body a break from the toxic onslaught… replenish healthful nutrients… alleviate cell-damaging inflammation… combat disease… even slow the aging process.
Get your doctor’s approval before beginning the one-week detox diet. This regimen may not be appropriate for people with certain chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, a kidney disorder, cancer or anemia.
Do not follow the detox diet if you are pregnant or breast-feeding or if you have diabetes or hypoglycemia.
WHAT TO EAT
The majority of the body’s self-cleansing takes place in the liver, which uses enzymes to break down hazardous toxins.
The dual goal of a one-week detox is to boost intake of nutrients that these enzymes may need… and to lighten the liver’s workload by limiting ingestion of additional toxins.
Choose a week when you don’t expect to be under stress or eating out a lot. Plan on three meals a day plus two snacks. Eat until satisfied — there’s no need to go hungry.
Important: The main components of the detox diet are vegetables and fruits. Buy organic to avoid pesticides that make the liver work harder.
Eat a variety of vegetables. These are loaded with antioxidants and may fuel liver enzymes. Choose any veggies you like — carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, mushrooms, peppers, salad greens, spinach, sprouts, tomatoes. Include sulfur-rich vegetables — asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, garlic, onions — which are especially supportive of detoxification enzymes.
Fresh is best, but frozen or canned vegetables are all right if they have nothing added. Eat vegetables raw, steamed or sautéed in a bit of olive oil.
Try a salad or crudité platter for lunch… and a medley of cooked vegetables for dinner.
Focus on fruit. Most fruits are rich in antioxidants. Try something new — boysenberries, guavas, kumquats, passion fruit — plus familiar favorites, such as apples, blueberries, cherries and raspberries.
Mix up a fruit salad for breakfast… have a pear or an orange as a snack… drink juice with lunch or dinner. Choose fresh or frozen fruits and juices with no added sugar or syrup.
Enhance flavor. Many ready-made salad dressings, dips and sauces contain unhealthful oils and too much sugar and salt.
Better: Make your own using monounsaturated oil, herbs and other healthful ingredients.
For salads: Toss greens with one teaspoon each of olive oil and balsamic vinegar plus a pinch of oregano… or one teaspoon of olive oil plus a splash of lemon juice.
For dipping: Try hummus, made from chickpeas and tahini (ground sesame seeds)… and baba ghanoush, made from eggplant and tahini.
For cooked vegetables: Sprinkle with clove, turmeric or other spices.
Add a little protein for energy. Many people feel energized during a detox week, but others feel tired because they are eating less protein than usual.
Nuts and seeds are excellent sources of protein. Choose unsalted varieties to avoid bloating.
If energy remains low after the first three days, once or twice a day have a poached or hard-boiled organic egg… four ounces of fish, such as wild Alaskan salmon (try it poached with dill)… or four ounces of baked or broiled free-range chicken.
Have eight glasses of filtered water daily. Staying hydrated helps your body excrete toxins.
Drink tea. Green and white teas are rich in antioxidants. Drink tea hot or over ice. Add a wedge of lemon or lime — this improves absorption of antioxidants.
Try “green drinks.” Typically these are made from powdered dehydrated wheatgrass, green barley, vegetables and herbs.
Some include the naturally sweet and calorie-free herb stevia. Once a day, stir the label-recommended amount of green drink mix into one cup of water or unsweetened diluted juice.
WHAT NOT TO EAT
Throughout your detox week, avoid foods with a high glycemic index (GI).
The GI is a ranking system that indicates a food’s potential to cause rapid spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels, which in turn promote cell-damaging inflammation and hinder detoxification. Helpful:
To find the GI of various foods, see http://www.glycemicindex.com.
Sugar has a very high GI — so avoid foods such as cakes, cookies, donuts, honey, soda and syrup.
Other potentially high-GI foods include those made with white flour (bread, crackers) and all types of rice.
Even some vegetables and fruits have a high GI. Avoid or limit consumption of beets, parsnips, potatoes and pumpkin… as well as watermelon, raisins and dates.
Also stay away from dairy foods. Milk contains sugars and proteins that can be difficult to digest.
Many people do not realize that they are sensitive to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and many other grains.
During detox week, stick to gluten-free grains that have a relatively low GI, such as quinoa and buckwheat.
Avoid alcohol, preservatives, and artificial colorings and sweeteners. These can tax the liver.
DETOX SUPPLEMENTS
Throughout your weeklong detox, continue taking whatever supplements you normally take. Also take the three supplements below to enhance detoxification activity (continuing even after the detox week, if desired)…
Alpha-lipoic acid. This antioxidant may help maintain normal liver function and improve glucose metabolism. Dosage: 100 mg daily. Avoid if you have thyroid problems.
Milk thistle extract. Studies show that this herb protects the liver from toxins… and can lower blood sugar levels. Dosage: 100 mg to 200 mg daily.
N-acetylcysteine (NAC). This antioxidant is so effective at protecting the liver that hospitals use it to treat overdoses of acetaminophen (Tylenol), which can cause liver failure.
New finding: NAC may help the body excrete mercury, often found in fish. Dosage: 500 mg daily.
When detox week is over, gradually reintroduce whole grains, lean beef and other healthful foods into your diet, while continuing to eat lots of organic fruits and vegetables.
Your liver will benefit — and your whole body will, too.
Women’s Health interviewed Shari Lieberman, PhD, CNS, FACN, who was a nutrition scientist in Hillsboro Beach, Florida, was in private practice for more than 25 years. She was a board member of the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists, fellow of the American College of Nutrition and coauthor of User’s Guide to Detoxification (Basic Health). Ms. Lieberman died in 2009.
May 4th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
There is a rumor that Fasial Shahzad
Was forced to do what he did because his family was being held hostage until he did what he was ordered to do.
He did it without trying to hurt anyone. That is why the device was so crudely set up. And why he left his hazard lights on to alert authorities.
Presently his family is being rescued by removing them from Pakistan.
LLoyd
May 4th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Hafa adai
You may be tired of hearing this story but now that the USAF has their story together I thought you might like to hear it.
________________________________________
Megan Fox Sweats While the USAF Melts
May 4, 2010: Offers to hire American airmen, stationed at an airbase on the Central Pacific island of Guam, as extras in the Transformers 3 movie, turned out to be an unexpectedly scary training exercise.
First, keep in mind that there is no Transformers 3 filming scheduled for Guam. The email was a fake, used to test how well airmen could detect a hacker attempts to deceive military Internet users to give up valuable information.
The Transformers 3 email was a test to see how many airmen would fall for a “spear phishing” offensive.
“Phishing” (pronounced “fishing”) is when a hacker sends out thousands, or millions, of emails that look like warnings from banks, eBay or PayPal, asking for you to log in (thus revealing your password to the hackers, who have set up a false website for this purpose) to take care of some administrative matter.
The hacker then uses your password to loot your account. “Spear phishing” is when the emails are prepared with specific individuals in mind.
The purpose here is to get specific information from, say, a bank manager, or someone known to be working on a secret project. In the Guam case, the targets of the spear phishing test were asked to go to a web site and fill out an application form to be eligible to be an extra.
That form asked for information that would have enabled hostile hackers to gain more access to air force networks. A lot of the airmen who received the Transformers 3 email, responded. The air force won’t say how many, but it was more than expected. A lot more.
The hundreds of separate spear phishing attacks on American military personnel each year is worrisome, because it means someone is looking for defense related data, including classified stuff.
Most people don’t fall for phishing attacks, but the hackers know that some will. This is especially true if the hackers can come up with the right hook.
Seeking extras, among young male airmen, for a movie set containing a sweaty and scantily clad Megan Fox, was apparently too much for even the most security minded trooper to resist.
Military personnel are trained to watch out for things like phishing attacks, but hackers only need to get a few victims to fall for it.
The Department of Defense has publicized this spear phishing attack in order to encourage any military personnel, who may have fallen for one (or think they did) to report that as soon as possible.
How to defend against this? There’s no perfect protection from these kinds of attacks, but there are things that can be done to reduce vulnerability.
This consists of more education of users (to make them aware of what kind of dangers they face), and hardware and software defenses against attacks.
Another approach favored by military, and government, users is frequent scans of user computers, and strict rules about what you can put on them.
What all of this tries to do is limit the damage, not eliminate it. This reflects an ancient military adage; “it’s not a matter of who is better, but who is worse (off).”
While American organizations are more enthusiastic users of the Internet than anyone else, any country that tries to compete with the United States, has some Internet vulnerability.
If they are less well protected than U.S. systems, they are going to suffer more if they are attacked.
__________________________________
Okay this may be more info that you wish to know, but it is supposed to alert you to the phishing scams being used to part you from your money via your passwords.
Be alert
Peter
May 5th, 2010 at 5:00 am
As I look on how humans treat the planet my first thought about you is confirmed. You are nothing more than livestock. We prey on you as you prey on beasts.
It seems that the aliens that share the planet with you are feel it is useless to attempt to reason with human kind. They are reluctantly reaching the conclusion that their only option to save the planet is to use force.
Your only hope maybe that worth as livestock will force us to defend you.
Viv
May 5th, 2010 at 5:39 am
Have you noticed that over all in the United States most white voters support the Arizona law. It seems that if someone could open the ovens the majority of whites in the US would respond as did the German population.
Whites never seem to mind what happens to the OTWS as long as it doesn’t affect them. This is the group that wants us the OTWS to unite with them when they feel threatened by terrorists.
If their goose isn’t being cooked, they as a majority could give a fuck about anyone else.
Their mental make up is such that they can ask OTWS with a straight face to condemn Reverend Wright for saying “goddamn america.”
They can ask this despite the fact that Reverend Wright is a man with no power other than his voice to rail at the injustices the white race has and continues to inflict upon his people.
They can do this while expecting OTWS to accept their support of a group who passed a law that racially profiles OTWS.
They can do this while expecting OTWS to overlook the racist statements of white men and women who as legislators have the power to make laws to enact and enforce their racism.
Perhaps the Cherokee were correct when they assessed this race of beings as creatures rather than humans.
As a majority they don’t seem to have sympathy, empathy or even common courtesy towards the treatment or feelings of the rest of the human race.
I could be wrong. Your Opinion?
Robert
May 5th, 2010 at 5:46 am
Isn’t interesting how some whites say they won’t continue to support Obama because he hasn’t brought about bipartisanship when the people who refuse to work with him are to a man and woman white bigots.
I am not one of those whites because I am not a hypocrite. Some of my friends who supported Obama are changing their support because they are getting nervous about having a non white at the helm.
They basically fear that the privileges we have gotten used to as whites will be evened out among all the people of the United States of America.
That is the unacceptable event most whites will resist to the death.
Jake
May 5th, 2010 at 5:51 am
Subject: Take two aspirin…
Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.
These excerpts are published each year for their amusement.
Here are last year’s winners…
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
May 5th, 2010 at 6:08 am
Robert
Not a pleasant read first thing in the morning. I usually catch “Morning Joe.” But lately, I’ve gotten used to checking in on Michelle’s blog to see what the latest rant against us white men is.
Yours was almost typical. Until I got the word from “Morning Joe” that in fact most white voters in America agree with the Arizona law. I don’t and that was surprising.
Norman
May 5th, 2010 at 6:16 am
Yeah Norman and was it also surprising that the white media excused their racism with the caveat that the white voters were disappointed with the federal government’s failure to enact sensible immigration laws. And they threw in that some of the illegal immigrants were committing crimes.
It seems that the white news media is telling the rest of us to fear angry white men. Or at the least that it is understandable that whites will on a state level discriminate against any OTW that the federal government doesn’t enact a law to to prevent that particular group from irritating the white race.
Paula
May 5th, 2010 at 6:20 am
Norman
It seems that government power is terrible to conservatives unless it is used against non whites to their satisfaction.
May 5th, 2010 at 6:28 am
I am an American working in France. When i read about what is happening in my country I am ashamed when foreigners as me this.
What is the difference between what the Arizona Law allows and the Nazis who stopped people on the streets and asked them for their papers without probable cause?
Helen
May 5th, 2010 at 6:30 am
This is dedicated to everyone who ever attempted to get into a regular workout routine.
Dear Diary,
For my birthday this year, my Husband (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me.
Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.
I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Christo, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear.
My husband seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.
_______________________________
WEDNESDAY:
The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot.
Christo was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. His voice is a little too perky for that early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying.
My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Christo put me on the stair monster. Why the heck would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Christo told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other crap too.
_______________________________