Dreamweaverrs Ponderings

 Read this   http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cbc/081103/canada/calgary_taser_calgary_police_1

The line that stands out the most in this article for me is this:” Lindsay said until there is conclusive evidence that stun guns are dangerous, police will be able to use them.” I don’t know how much more conclusive they need it to be.  A man died.  My humble opinion is that is conclusive.  Man gets stunned. Man dies right after he gets stunned.  Whatever the extenuating circumstances were the final result was that the man died.  Tasers or stun guns can do a lot more than stun someone.  I’ll give you a case in point that I know of personally, a firsthand experience that proves they are dangerous.  I really don’t need any more evidence to know that this weapon and it is a weapon that is often misused just like any other weapon. This is not just a tool. This is what happened.

My second dad, a man who has become a father figure to me, is both rough and tumble and very much a gentleman.  If he sees someone in trouble he will try to help them out.  Unfortunately being a good Samaritan in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he lives doesn’t always work. It often comes back to kick him in the face, but it never seems to stop him from trying. That is just who he is.One afternoon he heard screaming out in his back alley.  He looked up to see one single woman surrounded by a bunch of men.  She was screaming her head off and knowing the area as well as he does, the normal assumption would be that she was being attacked.  He stepped in to help her. 

 People often come to him for guidance, for advice and for strength of one kind or another. He doesn’t care who it is. If they need help, his sense of honour kicks in. That is a rare breed these days and especially in that city and that part of town. 

In the part of the city he lives in, crime runs rampant.  Most people will just go in and close the door or ignore it and hope it goes away.  The police often ignore what happens in that part of town. They don’t show up. I know that is true too because I have seen that with my own eyes too and I am a law abiding citizen of wherever I am. They didn’t come when I called when something happened to me.

 This time though the group of men going after the woman for whatever reason were undercover police.  Dad saw a terrified woman so he stepped in to help her.  The police thought that he was trying to hurt the woman.  At this point they had NOT identified themselves and they were just a group of men surrounding the woman in the back alley. 

 This particular back alley draws in all kinds of vermin from the area, with everything from drug addicts to drug pushers, gangs to prostitutes and just people looking for a fight. I have dealt with it there myself so I know it is no exaggeration.

As he stepped in to help her they decided he was trouble. They still didn’t identify themselves.  They pulled out the stun gun and shocked him, not just once but a number of times.  He is kind of a big bulldog type or a lumbering bear.  It took a few shocks to get him down.  The problem was the good Samaritan became the victim.

 They stopped his heart with their stun gun and he had to be rushed to the hospital to be resuscitated and get his heart going again.  The doctors were amazed that they could resuscitate him. The taser had not killed him. The doctor’s comment was how mad those make him. Apparently he has treated quite a few people who were brought in to the emergency ward because of being zapped with a taser not all by the supposed good guys obviously, but weapons get used the wrong way no matter what side the user is on.

 Dad’s a bear with a tough hide but their bad judgment almost cost his wife her husband and my husband and me our second dad.  Not dangerous they say?  They stopped his heart.  How is that not dangerous?

I think this is a case of sticking their heads in the sand. They don’t want to see what they don’t want to see because it doesn’t suit their purposes. And there it stands for now.

Whether TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION works or not on a long term, bigger scale is yet to be seen. The accompanying price tag for treatment as it is currently is in the article, $6,000 to $10,000 is something many people couldn’t handle financially and I’m guessing that most insurance companies don’t cover experimental techniques very often. Still the idea that there is another possible treatment for depression on the horizon for some people, that doesn’t involve constantly downing medications and is maybe a little less invasive to the system, is somewhat hopeful. Pills can’t always be the only answer around. They don’t work for everyone either.

 At least researchers realize that depression is a real illness and seems to be around in epidemic proportions these days. It cripples what otherwise could be productive, healthy human beings. Depression can turn a functioning person almost helpless at times and make them unable to do anything beyond what involves very minimal day to day existence, in the worst cases.

If it works for depression too, what other things might it eventually be used for? Like they said, this is a “whole new area of medicine”. The possibilities could be amazing.

 Read here about Two Britons Jailed for Sex on Dubai Beach

Along this subject, there are a few really basic rules of thumb to follow when you travel to another place, even one closer to your own home sometimes. These are sort of no brainers, but obviously not everyone uses their head all the time:

1.    1.    Do a little background research about the place you are going to, ask around, and talk to people who have been there or who are from there. Look it up online. Find out what their rules and standards of behavior are, especially in places known for strict religious or other guidelines, if there is any chance you might be tempted to be affectionate in a public place. Once you are there be observant. If no one else is doing it, it’s a pretty safe bet it’s a no no there. They have their laws for their own reasons. Don’t go over expecting everything to be the same as it is where you came from. You have to respect their rules. You are on their playing field. They have the baseball mitt. They made the rules. This isn’t a case of getting in the umpire’s face because you disagreed with the call. This is a different league.

2.    2.    Sex and relationships are really touchy subjects in many countries in the world. It might be a good idea to behave out in public the way you would want someone behaving in front of your small children and adding in that you are a really, really strict parent. It is a good way to gauge things until you know what each country’s mores and moral laws are. It might save a visit to the local jail too, maybe a really long one. It might even save your life.

3.    3.    If you break their moral code, don’t be surprised if there is a repercussion for actions they deem inappropriate and even illegal. Oh and some of their jail systems aren’t anywhere near as nice as the ones in say, The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, even though the whole system  needs a major overhaul in those places. You really don’t want to even see some of them, much less experience them as an inmate first hand. They have their own rules and ideas of basic human comforts and necessities for inmates in some of those places too. If you think the rules that put you in there are unfair, wait until you experience the ones inside.

4.    4.    Sometimes even a kiss or holding hands in some countries can land you in major trouble that gets your name into international headlines and makes you look really, hmm how should I say this diplomatically…Oh I guess I won’t because I can’t say it nicely, but you get the gist of my meaning.

5.    5.   If you don’t like their rules, don’t play in their field.”When in Rome…”

6.    6.    Use the three R’s, rules, respect and restraint. It will save you from dealing with the other big R, repercussions.

For a really hair raising experience that outdoes any thrill ride at an amusement park, try visiting an air force base museum along the lines of Travis Air Museum. I took my daughter and a friend of hers to the museum a couple of days ago while she is on her autumn break. I had wanted to see it myself and I figured it would be both fun and educational for my daughter and her friend and even for me, not to mention a needed outing so I could breathe. What I didn’t plan on was what it would make me feel seeing what I saw there as we walked around.

As we arrived we passed a coffin sitting outside a building across the street at what I assumed was the chapel. Two armed guards stood guard while they waited for the service to begin. I said a prayer for whoever it was who had not made it home alive and for his or her family.

This isn’t a huge museum but it is stuffed full of memorabilia and air force history. Each area represents something different with representation of every war the United States air force has been involved in. There are costumes and medals, full sized aircraft inside and outside the museum, pieces of space history, photographs and time lines and machinery parts and everything in between. There is even a replica of a space capsule that moves with the touch of a button and a few training simulator cockpits that we could climb into. The kids loved that and they spent quite awhile pretending they were really flying some of the amazing planes. There were also pieces of various engines and planes and old weaponry.

We went through the Vietnam War area with its year by year timeline, maps and memorabilia and then we arrived in front of a huge black thing that looked like something out of a cartoon. It was no cartoon. This big black metal shell was taller than I am setting on the rolling cart on its side, and I am about 5’9”. It wasn’t sleek or painted with insignias or fancy lettering and it didn’t look as detailed and technical as some of the other things we had already seen. It just looked like a big black metallic bubble, but it gave me a very odd sensation before I even knew what it was.

 Then I read the sign at its base.  Two words sent a chill right through me. It read “FAT MAN”. I was glued to the spot I stood on for a couple minutes, my heart skipping a few beats and my mouth hanging open.

This casing was one of the same that held the nuclear bomb that exploded over Nagasaki on the 9^th of August 1945. The plane that held and dropped it had to be able to withstand a1,000 foot kickback as it released this behemoth from its innards. Thinking in terms we can understand better, that is a little like buoying back up in water when you bounce back up from jumping in doing a cannonball. But shooting up 1,000 feet is like bouncing back partway up a mountain and still having to be able to maneuver and be in control well enough to veer off to the right side instantly 37  degrees so it wouldn’t get hit with the back draft of the bomb exploding, constantly maintaining full control of the plane. It makes you wonder how many mistakes were made figuring those details out for the pilots to have to deal with.

This bomb exploded in the air above land, not when it hit. The fat boy carried a payload equivalent to 23,000 tons of TNT which killed about 45,000 people instantly. Seeing even an empty casing sitting in front of me was more frightening than any thrill ride. In front of me was something which was powerful enough to wipe out a small city, destroying the people and everything around them in a flash. Anyone who survived it was condemned to a horrible ending.

Now put it into perspective today. That giant bomb with its deathly payload is but a baby in power, compared to what we have now. It looks big and takes your breath away when you realize what you are standing next to, and not in a good way.

The new behemoths come in a smaller package and don’t look as stereotypically ominous from what I have read, but big things come in smaller packages. I didn’t say good things. I said big things. In one current explosive head there is 9 to 12 times as much explosive power as that FAT BOY held, not only that, it is capable of shooting off its explosive heads into many specific different directions at once and annihilating many more people than what Fat Boy did in Nagasaki. This is PROGRESS?

The kids wanted to go back to the simulators before we explored all the full sized planes and helicopters outside on the museum grounds. They climbed in having a grand old time, being kids, just normal kids. I sat down on a bench feeling a little overwhelmed by everything there, and yes I cried for all the lives on all sides that this museum represented.

I have always looked at things from the human perspective, the individuals. This is a must see for anyone who goes to the area for a visit. All those numbers and things represent human lives lost, dreams gone, generation upon generation since aviation began. Yet somewhere in it all there is humanity. I felt it. It ran down my cheek.

I quietly saluted whoever was in that coffin still sitting there as we left. I hope you are flying above the storm now, on the eagle’s wings.

Wednesday night was church night. I was rushing trying to get to there on time. I look forward to it. It is a place to rewind, to find positive messages and guidance and for me there is hope there. At the last second I remembered I didn’t have enough gas to get to church and to get to the gas station. I had to go to the gas station first. I took my 5 bucks and raced out to the car. I hate being late to anything. If I timed it right I would get to church just on time, or only a minute or two late.

I drove the couple miles to the gas station, discount fill it yourself, cash prepay only of course. It saves a few pennies. This gas station is consistently a few cents cheaper than the two competitors on the other side of the street. So I took my measly five bucks in to pay. I bought 4 bucks worth and I admit, it decided to buy a lottery ticket. I don’t know why I felt the urge to get one at that moment. One can hope you know. Someone has to win.

I was aware that I had only a few minutes left to get to church on time (Suddenly that made me think of the old musical “My Fair Lady” and Stanley Holloway belting out “Get Me to the Church on Time”. ) Jumping in my car I stuck the lottery ticket in my coin purse, put my seat belt on, started the car and I was off.” Oh YES, only a few people in line to pay and no waiting line for a pump. I can do this!”

 O.K. now I was a few minutes late already, but I wasn’t going to miss it. Off I zipped, turned onto the road, got to the stop light and then it hit me. “Ummmm you didn’t put the gas in.”

I am an organized person. I tend to plan way ahead. I think ahead too. I was so anxious to get going I skipped a rather important step. This is not like me. I think about everything whether I am in a hurry or not. I got in the turn lane, went out on the main drag and made a left to go back and get my gas, hopefully before the car sputtered and stalled with no gas.

“Come on light turn. What the heck. Why would I forget to put gas in the car? That isn’t like me. Where is your head woman?” I just don’t do things like that. I’m one of those compulsive list makers who likes things organized, at least in my head.

Finally the light turns and I make my left, and get in the left again waiting for cars to pass so I can cross oncoming traffic to get back in the gas station. The whole time the gas station is in view. “Oh please don’t let anyone take that pump before I get back to it. I don’t have any more money.”

It also crosses my mind that if anyone is watching me I must look like a complete idiot.

Zip back in the space again. Just in case anyone DID see this rather moronic move, I get out of the car shaking my head and laughing at myself. I put my 4 dollars of gas in.

Now I am late. Repeat the same process of getting buckled in and so forth. Let’s try this again. Down the street I go. Of course I hit the red light again. By this time it is about 15 minutes past service starting time. Everyone is already there singing their hearts out and I’m on the way.

Down the street I drive in the dark. It is kind of a country type road, only two skinny lanes, one in each direction. I am still thinking what a bonehead move I made driving off without the gas and where was my head. I tend to be hard on myself.

A couple miles on I see flashing lights in my rearview mirror. My heart leaps. My stomach sinks. I wasn’t speeding. I signaled where I was supposed to. I came to a full stop at the one stop sign I had passed already. My lights were on. I had my seat belt on.

“What did I do wrong,” I am asking out loud to myself.

 I pull over feeling a little sick, with my guts doing summersaults. I can’t afford a ticket. Well, he races on past me. Apparently the lights were for something else and he wanted me out of the way on this little country road. “Oh thank you GOD.” I say out loud, letting myself breathe again, feeling my stomach return to its proper place.

I start the car again and head the way the police car just went. That is the way to church. As I turn the corner I see in the distance a couple sets of flashing lights. There is my friend the police man and a big wreck with totally smashed cars. I pulled into the line of cars going by the accident and as I pass I say a prayer that they are all o.k. The cars are totaled, mangled. There is glass everywhere. If I hadn’t messed up with the gas I would have been at that corner right when it happened.

They route us around the accident and on I go towards church. I was 25 minutes late when I walked in the door, but it suddenly hit me. I was SUPPOSED to be late. The song Amy Grant did, “Angels Watching over Me” came to mind at that instant. I always loved that song.

“God only knows the times my life was threatened just today.
A reckless car ran out of gas before it ran my way.
Near misses all around me, accidents unknown,
Though I never see with human eyes the hands that lead me home.
But I know they’re all around me all day and through the night.
When the enemy is closing in, I know sometimes they fight
To keep my fight from falling, I’ll never turn away.
If you’re asking what’s protecting me then you’re gonna hear me say:Got his angels watching over me, every move I make,
Angles watching over me!
Angels watching over me, every step I take,
Angels watching over me….”

I read this story and was very pleased such great effort was made to save wildlife and sadness that so many were lost.

 For some peculiar reason envisioning THIS air force flight set my imagination going and had me chuckling. There are the definite makings of an animated movie in this.

Picture if you will a bunch of penguins standing waiting to board the plane, each one decked out in a penguin version of an air force flight suit, little fishy shaped patches on their arms. They are The Penguin Squad. The nose of the plane has little fish painted on it for each successful mission.

One rather queasy big tough one who can’t take heights complaining saying,

 “Whose great idea was this anyhow? Just because I am a bird doesn’t mean I am supposed to fly. I’ve got flippers not wings…see.” He flaps his flippers weakly making a face at the others.” Do these look like they are supposed to be airborne?  “And these webs between my toes ain’t parachutes,” he says holding up his foot to show his buddies.

“Aw pipe down and enjoy the flight. Marv,” Max snaps.

“Yeah, maybe we can see how the other half live now. Get our piece of the sky,” Flip dreamily looks out the window at the sky.

“Oh yeah Mr. Fantasyland Flip. Let’s all twitter around like little Mary Poppin’s bluebird flitting from ice berg to iceberg.  If I wanted to see how the other half lived, I’d come back as a seagull and go steal that pile of fish you keep hiding over behind McGill’s iceberg, Max,” he says really loudly turning his head so the others can hear.

“Huh what fish?” Max looks at Marv and shrinks down in his seat, looking around furtively hoping no one heard the comment about the fish.

“Oh suddenly you don’t remember that, eh?” Marv snorts.

A group of penguins start chattering loudly coming towards Max.

“Hey you said those fish all got away.”

“Yeah Max, you hoarding again? What’s the deal?”

“See it I invite you over for a fish fry again… gees.”

“Wait a minute. You said you hadn’t had a catch in weeks and here I was feelin’ sorry for you.”

Marv sits chuckling to the side as a hoard of squawking penguin flyboys surround Max demanding to know where the fish are hidden. He is pleased with himself for getting the heat off of him and onto Max. He stretches his legs out in front of him off the edge of the waiting lounge seat and puts his arms behind his head. He leans back with a big smirk on his face and mumbles,”I ain’t no flyboy. Give me the nice ice cold water and bye bye Marv. I’m home again off into the cold blue yonder.”

Animation ideas aside, I would have liked to have been there to see them on that plane and then set free again. That must have been an exhilarating and once in a lifetime experience. Can you imagine that many penguins all in one place?

If you have ever seen the 1976 movie “The Food of the Gods”, you may remember the oversized rats and insects that fed on a manmade concoction. I think there is a 1989 version of it too. The food made normal sized things turn into monstrous unnatural sizes and huge creatures ran loose out of control trying to devour human beings. 

 When I came across this posting about record breaking foods, that movie instantly popped into my head, not that these are a bad experiment gone bad like in the movie, just the sheer size of the creations. What do they have? Try a 714 pound blueberry bagel, a 1.2 ton chocolate chip cookie made with 2,000 eggs, a Belgian chocolate egg that is 27 feet tall made from 50,000 chocolate bars, and a 1,496 square foot gingerbread house actually made out of gingerbread. There are 19 mouth watering, awe inspiring food creations to check out.

You have to take a look at these just for the fun of it and to appreciate the work that must have gone into making each of these.  I always like to know how things are made or how they do something like this.  For instance where do you get an oven big enough to bake a 180 pound cinnamon bun, what kind of truck moves a 30, 540 pound chocolate kiss and how many pumpkins does it take to make a 2,020 pound pumpkin pie, or where do you get a baking pan that big? 

As my daughter said, “ you could feed a small city with the amount of food they used to make those things.”

They are fun and amazing. Take a look HERE.

All of mankind’s power, money and influence can’t stop Mother Nature from doing what she is going to do. We can take preventative measures and plan for the worst, but we can’t keep the storm from coming. Storms like Ike are a great equalizer. He didn’t care who he hit, rich, and poor, powerful or weak or what place he landed in. He just blew and tore with destructive fury. A giant tantrum from one of Mother Nature’s children with his fingers reaching out to make messes everywhere.

The amazing thing about Ike was how far he reached. The effects of the storm were felt up in Ontario and in the Midwestern United States and down in Haiti, The Bahamas and Cuba. Storms don’t know any borders or political and manmade barriers. They are a lot like politicians. They don’t care who they hurt in their march to do what they do, and often have little respect for boundaries if it suits their purposes.

Now the cleanup begins. The storm is over for the news and the general public. It is over. It is done. Next page, move on… except for the thousands of people who now have to pick up the shreds of their lives, homes, businesses and lives and start over again. Some will be doing this literally from scratch.

Today my12 year old daughter came up to me while she was mixing some brownies to bake. She brought in the concoction in a white plastic mixing bowl and said, “Doesn’t this look like a volcano?” It was a glob of half melted butter on top of the half mixed brown batter. I admitted it did have an odd resemblance to a volcano. She got a real thrill out of her discovery.

Then she continued on.”Remember how I used to think that you could unmix things like cookie dough once you mixed them together?” I did remember that. She was quite upset at the time that you couldn’t take it apart like a building block creation or a clock. “I figured out why I thought that Mommy.”

“Why is that?” I asked her.

“I figured if you can unscrew a screw, you should be able to unmix the ingredients in cookie dough. I thought you should be able to unmix everything.”

This is a child’s abstract reasoning at its best. It made me pause to think for a moment. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could unmix the cookie dough, start over and put in the ingredients back in the right way in our lives when things go wrong?

There are times I think kids should be in charge, not often, but sometimes.

Yesterday I was talking to a dear friend Cindy on the phone. We started talking about the difficulties of a family living apart, the intense pain. In my case it is money that we are trying to raise and I know it is torture for me to be away. Imagine what it is like for a soldier. This is my own personal war, but I’m not being shot at or fearing for my life every day, at least not in the way a soldier is.

 I can truly sympathize with the soldier’s who serve in other countries away from their loved ones. That is a whole other kind of courage that often people don’t think about. It needs to be addressed.

 Step into a soldier’s shoes. Cindy has a friend Emily with a daughter Bekkah. Bekkah is serving in Iraq.  Bekkah has a two old son William who now lives with Grandma and Grandpa while Mommy is away serving her country. She will get one break to see her family and son sometime around Christmas, then back she goes away from her family. This is nothing new. Soldiers do it all the time but think about what kind of dedication and courage that takes, and what a sacrifice those soldiers make in hopes of bettering the world for others. Most of them say they are just doing their duty, just doing their work like anyone else does. It isn’t just the solders themselves serving either. It is also the families left behind who pay the price. As Milton put it, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” They make sacrifices too.

Bekkah’s son sometimes thinks Mommy lives in the telephone. He is two. How is he supposed to understand why she is far away or why she can’t come home? When she calls he hides the phone, wants to keep her to himself, after all that is Mommy. He plays games with Mommy over the phone. He hides her in his little plastic play oven where he loves to play chef. That way he has her there playing with him all to himself. Her muffled voice drifts out of a little plastic oven asking him to come find her, hide and seek long distance over a telephone from Iraq. Mommy gets time to call in the mornings. That is William’s playtime with his beloved Mommy.

As I often say to people who are blessed enough to be with their family, “Go hug them just because they are there, and thank God that you can.” It is a small thing, but to those who are far from their loved ones for whatever reason, like Rebekkah serving in Iraq, it is a small thing that is priceless to them.