Sandstorm Blowing In
I was back in the project room, making the best use of the day’s light – and Kuwait truly has great light – when all of a sudden, it was as if I had just put sunglasses on. Big orange sunglasses, blocking out a good half the available light.
Here is what it looks like where I normally take the sunrise photos:
Here are more views:
The Magic Bullet
What if someone told you there was a magic pill you could take that would help your body fight off attacks of diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis – almost anything that ails you – wouldn’t you grab that pill?
You can read the entire article HERE, at the New York Times.
You Name It, and Exercise Helps It
By JANE E. BRODY
Published: April 29, 2008
Randi considers the Y.M.C.A. her lifeline, especially the pool. Randi weighs more than 300 pounds and has borderline diabetes, but she controls her blood sugar and keeps her bright outlook on life by swimming every day for about 45 minutes.
Randi overcame any self-consciousness about her weight for the sake of her health, and those who swim with her and share the open locker room are proud of her. If only the millions of others beset with chronic health problems recognized the inestimable value to their physical and emotional well-being of regular physical exercise.
“The single thing that comes close to a magic bullet, in terms of its strong and universal benefits, is exercise,” Frank Hu, epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, said in the Harvard Magazine.
I have written often about the protective roles of exercise. It can lower the risk of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, dementia, osteoporosis, gallstones, diverticulitis, falls, erectile dysfunction, peripheral vascular disease and 12 kinds of cancer.
But what if you already have one of these conditions? Or an ailment like rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, congestive heart failure or osteoarthritis? How can you exercise if you’re always tired or in pain or have trouble breathing? Can exercise really help?
You bet it can. Marilyn Moffat, a professor of physical therapy at New York University and co-author with Carole B. Lewis of “Age-Defying Fitness” (Peachtree, 2006), conducts workshops for physical therapists around the country and abroad, demonstrating how people with chronic health problems can improve their health and quality of life by learning how to exercise safely.
Up and Moving
“The data show that regular moderate exercise increases your ability to battle the effects of disease,” Dr. Moffat said in an interview. “It has a positive effect on both physical and mental well-being. The goal is to do as much physical activity as your body lets you do, and rest when you need to rest.”
In years past, doctors were afraid to let heart patients exercise. When my father had a heart attack in 1968, he was kept sedentary for six weeks. Now, heart attack patients are in bed barely half a day before they are up and moving, Dr. Moffat said.
The core of cardiac rehab is a progressive exercise program to increase the ability of the heart to pump oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood more effectively throughout the body. The outcome is better endurance, greater ability to enjoy life and decreased mortality.
The same goes for patients with congestive heart failure. “Heart failure patients as old as 91 can increase their oxygen consumption significantly,” Dr. Moffat said.
Aerobic exercise lowers blood pressure in people with hypertension, and it improves peripheral circulation in people who develop cramping leg pains when they walk — a condition called intermittent claudication. The treatment for it, in fact, is to walk a little farther each day.
In people who have had transient ischemic attacks, or ministrokes, “gradually increasing exercise improves blood flow to the brain and may diminish the risk of a full-blown stroke,” Dr. Moffat said. And aerobic and strength exercises have been shown to improve endurance, walking speed and the ability to perform tasks of daily living up to six years after a stroke.
As Randi knows, moderate exercise cuts the risk of developing diabetes. And for those with diabetes, exercise improves glucose tolerance — less medication is needed to control blood sugar — and reduces the risk of life-threatening complications.
Perhaps the most immediate benefits are reaped by people with joint and neuromuscular disorders. Without exercise, those at risk of osteoarthritis become crippled by stiff, deteriorated joints. But exercise that increases strength and aerobic capacity can reduce pain, depression and anxiety and improve function, balance and quality of life.
Likewise for people with rheumatoid arthritis. “The less they do, the worse things get,” Dr. Moffat said. “The more their joints move, the better.”
Exercise that builds gradually and protects inflamed joints can diminish pain, fatigue, morning stiffness, depression and anxiety, she said, and improve strength, walking speed and activity.
Exercise is crucial to improving function of total hip or knee replacements. But “most patients with knee replacements don’t get intensive enough activity,” Dr. Moffat said.
Water exercises are particularly helpful for people with multiple sclerosis, who must avoid overheating. And for those with Parkinson’s, resistance training and aerobic exercise can increase their ability to function independently and improve their balance, stride length, walking speed and mood.
Meat Eating Drives up Costs
I first heard this idea weeks ago, on BBC, as I was listening back in the project room. “How can this be?” I thought, as I first heard the idea that as the poor become richer, their diets are changing and they are demanding cars. That the burgeoning middle-class in China and India are changing everything, and changing it quickly, in ways we never foresaw.
This article has to do with a shortage of fertilizer, and when you get down to the middle of the article (where I stopped) you learn that what is driving up the cost of fertilizer is that so much food that used to go to human consumption is now going into feeding animals for human consumption.
So how are we, as a world community, going to fairly allocate the world’s resources so that nobody goes hungry, everyone has “enough”?
From today’s New York Times; you can read the entire article by clicking here)
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN
Published: April 30, 2008
XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents.
The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer.
Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse.
Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had already occurred in other parts of the world. Yields of rice and corn rose, and diets grew richer.
Now those gains are threatened in many countries by spot shortages and soaring prices for fertilizer, the most essential ingredient of modern agriculture.
Some kinds of fertilizer have nearly tripled in price in the last year, keeping farmers from buying all they need. That is one of many factors contributing to a rise in food prices that, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program, threatens to push tens of millions of poor people into malnutrition.
Protests over high food prices have erupted across the developing world, and the stability of governments from Senegal to the Philippines is threatened.
In the United States, farmers in Iowa eager to replenish nutrients in the soil have increased the age-old practice of spreading hog manure on fields. In India, the cost of subsidizing fertilizer for farmers has soared, leading to political dispute. And in Africa, plans to stave off hunger by increasing crop yields are suddenly in jeopardy.
The squeeze on the supply of fertilizer has been building for roughly five years. Rising demand for food and biofuels prompted farmers everywhere to plant more crops. As demand grew, the fertilizer mines and factories of the world proved unable to keep up.
Some dealers in the Midwest ran out of fertilizer last fall, and they continue to restrict sales this spring because of a limited supply.
“If you want 10,000 tons, they’ll sell you 5,000 today, maybe 3,000,” said W. Scott Tinsman Jr., a fertilizer dealer in Davenport, Iowa. “The rubber band is stretched really far.”
Fertilizer companies are confident the shortage will be solved eventually, noting that they plan to build scores of new factories. But that will probably create fresh problems in the long run as the world grows more dependent on fossil fuels to produce chemical fertilizers. Intensified use of such fertilizers is certain to mean greater pollution of waterways, too.
Agriculture and development experts say the world has few alternatives to its growing dependence on fertilizer. As population increases and a rising global middle class demands more food, fertilizer is among the most effective strategies to increase crop yields.
“Putting fertilizer on the ground on a one-acre plot can, in typical cases, raise an extra ton of output,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the Columbia University economist who has focused on eradicating poverty. “That’s the difference between life and death.”
The demand for fertilizer has been driven by a confluence of events, including population growth, shrinking world grain stocks and the appetite for corn and palm oil to make biofuel. But experts say the biggest factor has been the growing demand for food, especially meat, in the developing world.
Need Some Encouragement
I just got sick of myself, not exercising, and decided to start exercising again, and so I did. I have a little running trampoline, I can run, watch the news, watch the ships go by out in the Gulf, and, of course, I count.
Why am I counting? I heard about this program, 1000 Steps, that if you walk 10,000 steps a day, you should be on your way to fitness. I figure if I can knock out a good part of that on the trampoline, also getting my heart rate up, it should be all good – right? Wouldn’t you think so?
I’ve done fairly well. Counting helps me get through the exercise – I’m sort of accomplishment driven, and I need to have goals to achieve. I started out at 2200 and I am now up to 3200 – it’s not that hard, and one day I am hoping to be able to knock out 10,000 steps and then all my other steps all day are gravy.
Except for one thing. Since I’ve started, which was only a week ago, I have actually GAINED weight. It is SO discouraging. I am feeling better, I think I can already see positive changes in the mirror, I am feeling more fit. I love the feeling of burning calories I get when I have finished. I don’t believe I have changed my eating habits – so why would the scales move up???
Come Back!
Law n’ Order Man! EnviroGirl! Come back! Come to Kuwait! We’ll make it worth your while!
Actually, in Kuwait, “coming soon” does not actually mean coming soon. There was a restaurant “coming soon” at The Palms, and we waited. And waited. The sign was up for months, and the restaurant never came!
We’ve heard there is also a Borders Books coming to The Avenues Mall – but we aren’t holding our breaths!
Clear Skies
Look at the sky! It’s clear! It looks like it is going to be a gorgeous day today. AdventureMan and I were out for dinner last night and chose a restaurant so that we could eat outside, figuring there won’t be many more evenings where it will be cool enough. Even though it was comfortable, the fly level was high enough to tell us we won’t be eating out much more this “spring.”
It is 68°F / 20°C at 0600 this morning, looking at a forecast high of 98°F / 37°C. Even though it is clear, I am sneezing, so something seems to be in the air.
Sunrise, April 20, 2008
As you can see, the day is more clear, but not exactly clear:
At 0600, it is 66°F / 19°C and the high today is expected to be 100°F / 38° C.
It is still very . . . ummm. . . .Hazy(?) Cloudy(?) Dusty (?) on the horizon. Visibility down close to the ground is limited. There is definitely less dust than in the last two days, thanks be to God.
Second Day Sandstorm
Here is what the sun looks like early this morning; you can’t even see the sea, even though you are looking right at it:
Here is what the city looks like early this morning; visibility maybe 100 m?
And after only one day and a half, here is what my cleaning lady faces today:
(That’s my footprint in the dust, if you were wondering) In just one day, in a seemingly air-tight living space, dust coats everything. I am leaving footprints as if in a house abandoned for a year or so!
I actually don’t mind driving in the dust storms, as long as there is some visibility. When it comes in so thick you can’t see 10 meters in front of the car, I have to pull over. Even with the car sealed, and the A/C on, filtering the air, my nose gets stuffy and I feel like I am having trouble breathing. Maybe today is a good day to stay home. 😦
Flea Infestation
Here’s the problem. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. OK, OK, we have our holy books, and they give us character guidelines. I am talking about specifics here, when life hands you those lemons, how do you make lemonade? Specifically!
When we move to Florida, we thought we were in Paradise. We had a house with a big pool, surrounded by shady trees, families of racoons, beautiful gardens – what’s not to like?
Paradise came with chamaeleons, lizards, cockroaches, even in the best houses. And fleas. We had to learn how to deal with them.
During our first and only flea infestation, at first we blamed the cats. Being a terrible mother, I asked my son to help, and he went into the walk in shower (No! Not naked! He was wearing swimming trunks!) to bathe the cats with anti-flea shampoo. I would get the cat trapped, put the cat in the shower, he would shampoo them, let one out and I would hand him the next one. Both cats loved him the best; he had chosen them from the litter.
When I saw this photo on LOLCATS, I really had to laugh.
see more crazy cat pics
Just so you will know, the solution is to take the cats to the vet and have them treated for fleas professionally. While the cats are at the vets, pour 20 Mule Team Borax over all your carpets and in all your upholstered furniture, let it stand overnight, and vacuum it all up. After you vacuum, bring the cats back. It really works. The borax creates a saline environment in which the fleas (and cockroaches) can’t survive, but it doesn’t hurt pets.
Benefits of Cinnamon and Honey
The friend who sent this forward to me knows I like folk remedies and natural medicines, and even though that is true, there are parts of this forward about which I am seriously skeptical. Cinnamon and honey taste good. They probably can’t hurt you if you try it for bad breath, or weight loss, or gas, or a cold.
If you have high cholesterol or cancer – this forward does not cite any studies for the benefits claimed, so if you were to add cinnamon and honey to your diet, it probably wouldn’t hurt you, but if you stopped taking your medications without consulting your doctor – that would be a very bad idea.
Add cinnamon and honey to your toast, to your tea, but, in addition, take some of these suggestions with a grain of salt.
Subject: Benefits of Cinnamon & Honey
Facts on honey and cinnamon:
It is found that a mixture of
honey and cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of
the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as
a ” Ram Ban” (very effective) medicine for all kinds of diseases.
Honey can be used without any side effects for any kind of diseases.
Today’s science says that even though honey is
sweet, if taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm
diabetic patients. Weekly World News, a magazine in Canada, on its
issue dated 17 January, 1995 has given the following list of diseases
that can be cured by honey and cinnamon as
researched by western scientists:
HEART DISEASES:
Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, apply on toast instead of jelly and jam, and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the
patient from heart attack. Also those who have already had an attack,
if they do this process daily, they are kept miles away from the next
attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and
strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada , various nursing
homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as you
age, the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged;
honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and veins.
ARTHRITIS:
Arthritis patients may take daily, morning, and
night, one cup of hot water with two spoons of honey and one small
teaspoon of cinnamon powder. If taken regularly even chronic
arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the
Copenhagen University, it was found that when the doctors
treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and
half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that
within a week, out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73
patients were totally relieved of pain, and within a month, mostly
all th e patients who could not walk or move around because of
arthritis started walking without pain.
BLADDER INFECTIONS:
Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one
teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It
destroys the germs in the bladder.
TOOTHACHE:
Make a paste of one teaspoon of cinnamon powder and
five teaspoons of honey and apply on the aching tooth. This may be
applied three times a day until the tooth stops aching.
CHOLESTEROL:
Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of
Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water, given to a
cholesterol patient were found to reduce the level of cholesterol in
the blood by 10 percent within two hours. As mentioned for arthritic
patients, if taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol is
cured. According to information received in said journal, pure
honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol. (By
the way. if you’re taking cholesterol medicine STOP! They all contain
STATIN which weaken your muscles…including YOUR HEARTand none has
been shown to stop heart attacks or strokes!!!!)
(Blogger comment: Please, this is a forward. Please, don’t stop taking your cholesterol medications without discussing this with your doctor. If it were so simple, wouldn’t we have heard this before?)
COLDS:
Those suffering from common or severe colds should
take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder
daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough,
cold, and clear the sinuses.
UPSET STOMACH:
Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache
and also clears stomach ulcers from the root.
GAS:
According to the studies done in India and Japan ,
it is revealed that if honey is taken with cinnamon powder the
stomach is relieved of gas.
IMMUNE SYSTEM:
Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens
the immune system and protects the body from bacteria and viral
attacks. Scientists have found that honey has various vitamins and
iron in large amounts. Constant use of honey strengthens the white
blood corpuscles to fight bacteria and viral diseases.
INDIGESTION:
Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of
honey taken before food relieves acidity and digests the heaviest of
meals
INFLUENZA:
A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains
a natural Ingredient which kills the influenza germs and saves the
patient from flu.
LONGEVITY:
Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken
regularly, arrests the ravages of old age. Take four spoons of
honey, one spoon of cinnamon powder and three cups of water and boil
to make like tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It
keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans also
increases and even a 100 year old, starts performing the chores of a 20-year-old.
PIMPLES:
Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of
cinnamon powder paste.
Apply this paste on the pimples before sleeping and
wash it next morning with warm water. If done daily for two weeks,
it removes pimples from the root.
SKIN INFECTIONS:
Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts
on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin
infections.
WEIGHT LOSS:
Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast
on an empty stomach and at night before sleeping, dr ink honey and
cinnamon powder boiled in one cup of water. If taken regularly, it
reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking
this mixture regular ly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the
body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.
CANCER:
Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed
that advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured
successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should
daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon
powder for one month three times a day.
(Blogger comment: Research by whom? Again, please discuss this with your doctor – if curing cancer were so easy as eating cinnamon and honey, we would probably all be cancer free by now.)
FATIGUE:
Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of
honey is more helpful rather than being detrimental to the strength
of the body. Senior citizens, who take honey and cinnamon powder in
equal parts, are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done
research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of
water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, taken daily after brushing
and in the afternoon at about 3:00 p.m. when the vitality of the
body starts to decrease, increases the vitality of the body within a week.
BAD BREATH:
People of South America , first thing in the
morning, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powde r mixed
in hot water, so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.
HEARING LOSS:
Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder,
taken in equal parts restore hearing. Remember when we were kids? We
had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it!
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