In the Hills of Kentucky

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I spent Thanksgiving weekend with my family in the hills of Kentucky in the Red River Gorge area where my brother used to spend a lot of time rock climbing. He hadn't been down there in 6 years and was quite surprised by the amount of climbers and tourists down there even though it was the off season. The weather was perfect though and that brings everyone out. We did some great hiking and we were each in charge of preparing one meal for everyone. Damien and I made chick pea curry. Josh and Annie made two great breakfasts and my parents made grilled pork chops and vegetable shish-ka-bobs.
Damien also got his first s'more experience! (I have put up pictures on my photo site!)
This was also the first weekend that we have been really trying to watch our diet. I went to the health food store last week and bought replacement items for all of our cleaning supplies, toiletries and food/cooking items. We bought bulk whole grains like brown rice, spelt, and quinoa. So far we love it! The grains make the whole kitchen smell like fresh flavorful food. I have always been a very fast eater and am making a conscious effort to chew more slowly and I can feel the difference immediately. I can already feel that I have more energy now that I am not giving in to snacking on high calorie fattening full-of-sugar or fried nastiness!

On a different note I was watching The Daily Show this morning and they were talking about the new "milestone" that the Iraqi War has hit and they made a great point. I guess other news shows and channels are reporting that the Iraqi War has now lasted longer than World War II. Well, that is not exactly true. Actually, that is not at all true! WWII started in 1939 and went on for a long while before America got involved late in 1941. It is a very telling observation that most of the US only considers WWII starting when WE got involved. So as The Daily Show put it the Iraqi War has now lasted as long as the American involvement in WWII.
Man are we self-centered or what!!!!

Healthy Living

http://www.thenaturalguide.com/index.html

Please go to this website and browse around. Read the book The Beginner's Guide to Natural Living by Larry Cook. If it doesn't change your attitude towards the food you eat and the products you buy and the information you are told then you are accepting the fact that you and your family are being poisoned.
Damien and I have been trying to eat and live healthy for a while and realize that you can't just do it overnight and without any education about it. We decided two things at first: 1) No more shopping at Wal-mart & 2) Avoid buying any food with corn syrup in it. (Please read the book Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser for more in depth information about the horrors of corn syrup.) It was a great decision and it made us gradually more aware of what we were eating and how much of the food in America includes corn syrup or some other kind of sweetener. We also started to buy more organic food when possible. Especially since Target has recently started carrying many organics and corn syrup free items. But we didn't become really alarmed until we started reading The Beginner's Guide to Natural Living.
I think it is pretty much common sense for educated people (or it should be anyway) that using chemicals and synthetic products at the rate that we do, taking drugs for every little thing, and eating fast food is bad, very bad. But this book talks about things that will make your skin crawl, literally. It breaks down many of the chemicals, synthetics and processes that most grocery store and restaurant food goes through and how it affects the human body and the environment. It explains how many of these things come under many different names. It goes into stories about big business and government and they certainly don't have your best health in mind when they ban things, approve things etc. For example, pesticides that have been banned here in the US because they are so dangerous, we sell overseas and those countries use them and then send the food that was grown back to the US for us to eat!!!! We looked in our kitchen after reading several chapters and found three items with the incredibly dangerous flavor enhancer MSG, among other undesirable items we are going to throw out. You may think we are jumping to conclusions too fast or are becoming wackos. You see all of us eating regular stuff everyday and none of us drop dead or have to go to the hospital right? But look at everything really closely. Look at these things and think about if they mean you: weight gain, insomnia, muscle ache, birth defects, problem pregnancies, dandruff, tooth decay, anxiety, depression, stomach aches, indigestion, dehydration, frequent colds and illness, diabetes, cancer, OCD, ADHD, rashes, asthma, allergies, nausea, and hair loss. These are just some of the things that are on the rise and many people disregard as just a part of life, there is nothing to be done except complain or take a pill. But many of these things are probably caused and can be cured by the food you eat, the water you drink and the products you use.
I am certainly no healthy living guru and I realize that it is probably something that most people are not willing to try because it means changing habits and giving up things, but if you get a chance please take a look at that website and maybe you will be inspired to take more control over your own health.
By the way, if you want to be really appalled at what people with positions of power are trying to make us believe take a look at the Hudson Institute Website: www.hudson.org (Esp. check out the Center for Global Food Issues section http://www.cgfi.org/ )
Don't forget to take a look at this website also, so you can see the millions of dollars this "non-partisan, independent" think tank gets and more importantly from who: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hudson_Institute

If you need any help kicking the fast food habit go watch the movie Fast Food Nation. You won't be disgusted by the food itself but the industry's treatment of employees, traffickiing of illegal immigrants, destruction of the enviornment and general power they have over us all. It's both interesting and sad that this movie (which I have actually seen heavily advertised on TV recently) is playing at only one theater in the entire Indianapolis area, Keystone Arts. And of course it is on the far north side, just like every other health food related store and half way decent place to eat. It is funny, because the people who live around me in Fountain Square need health food and need to kick the fast food habit more than the people in Carmel and Zionsville!

Babel

This movie was one of the best films I have seen in a long time and it has resurrected my love and respect for movies in general. It is four interwoven stories that all have a loose connection. It takes place in three very different cultures: Japan, Morocco and Mexico. The cinematography was beautiful and gave you a real sense of the place and the landscape. The three places were juxtasposed in such a way to be strikingly aware of how very different they all are from each other.
The movie is mainly about communication and the lack there of. There are 7 languages spoken in the film, which heightens the idea of barriers to communication, but there is a lot more to communication than mere spoken language. Religion, age, gender, economics, and education also play significant roles in how people can have a hard time relating and communicating with each other. It also goes to show you that the world is getting smaller and smaller. We all are affecting each other all over the world all the time and we are going to have a harder and harder time if we don't try to familiarize ourselves with people of different races, cultures and religions.
I recently went on the Internet Movie Database to look at what others had to say about this film. It was nice to see many open-minded people who enjoyed the fact that it forces the mind to think and analyze. But there were many, many people who were so marrow-minded as to say things so far off the mark that all they did was scream ignorance. Sometimes it is hard to have much faith in people here and it is scary that so many can be so shallow and empty and unwilling to give anything different a little bit of a chance.
So, please, if you want to be exposed to something new, see the world, think for yourself and feel complex human emotion and empathy for others, see this movie. And for anyone who refuses to see it because they don't like Brad Pitt...well, it would be sad to let him keep you from such a beautiful and important film. Plus, he isn't even in it very much.

I hope to have more book and movie and media reviews on here from now on. I feel like I have so much to say and in this day and age in this country more and more people need to speak out!!!

Kafka on the Shore

I just finished a very strange novel called Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, a well-known contemporary Japanese author. It was quite a unique story of a 15-year old runaway whose mother left him when he was 4. I guess it is ultimately about finding meaning and contentment in your life even though you may have been abandoned or disabled, be stupid or even "normal". Each character has his or her own very personal struggles to face and they all, in some way or another, help each other to face them.
Like a lot of Japanese novels, it is interwoven with a bit of fantasy and other-worldliness. It could be a bit hard to follow near the end but its ambiguity makes it all the more thought provoking. You definitely know you are not reading a book by an American author.
I recommend this book it you are looking for something different and something that you may never truly figure out! There are two other books by Murakami I recommend: Norwegian Wood, which is the most famous one among non-Japanese I think, and his non-fiction book called Underground where he put together many interviews he did with those involved in the serin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. The interviews are disturbingly vivid and put you right there! What makes it so real is that he includes interviews all all kinds of people involved, from the victims who were riding the subway that day to the station and emergency staff, from relatives of those that died to the members of the cult that was responsible for the attack. He has written several others that I am looking forward to reading.