Convenient food

Being a "locavore" and eating foods grown near where you live may not help the environment as much as you might think, according a new study. Mason Inman National Geographic News April 2008

I was born before supermarkets, before freezers and definitely before convenience and prepackaged foods. I remember when food was local because the economic and food technological machinery did not exist. The last few weeks have exposed a fatal weakness in all human systems, namely selfishness and greed. Human beings have tunnel vision and are essentially reductionist, seeing only what they want to see. Food production is never merely about carbon footprint nor about saving time or about profits.

The last few weeks the media has been filled with listereosis and the sliced meats and cheese contamination. We've known for a long time that ground meats are more prone to bacterial contamination, but assumed that cooked and cured meats would be safe. But of course pre-slicing before sales removes that protection. Prepackaged and pre sliced foods are quick and convenient. It removes food preparation from those eating to others making profits.

Now milk intentionally contaminated with melamine is in the news. 53,000 babies and young children affected in a country with a one child policy! But this is not the action of one person or one company as so far 22 companies have been identified as following this dangerous practice of doctoring the milk. But the effect is not localized to once country but across Asia and even North America because globalization means foods travel the world.

Most food in North America travels at least 1500 kilometres to you in fact In the USA, in one meal ingredients may come from five different nations, and in Australia, that might be 30,000 km from farm to stomach. We want strawberries or raspberries in winter so they travel across continents. We're encouraged to eat more fish except we're a long way from the ocean and of course no more than 2 portions a week because of mercury.

In all of this, whoever we are we assume that our governments and officials will look after us. But it's interesting that the politicians are campaigning like fury and spend more time working on negative talk rather than the role of politicians. I was asking myself what I should have said the other night when the local candidate appeared on my door step. Here's a few questions that came to mind this afternoon "If you're elected who will command your loyalty, 1) your party, 2) those who voted for you, or 3) the people living in this neighbourhood?" or "Would you still stand for election if there were no pension and the salary was half that currently?" or "Why do you exactly want to be a politician?"

No government is ever elected on the platform that "We will spend extra millions on testing and confirming the safety of water and food." No government would voted themselves a pay decrease because they did not fulfill promises. Somehow, at the moment, being a politician seems to be another way to convenient food?

Good government has checks and balances to ensure safety and wise practices. In a democratic system this is normatively found in losing an election. The problem, I see, is that pensions and benefits cut in too early and there are really few penalties for a politician who fails to be re-elected. Furthermore government is no longer agent of the peoples rather politicians are in the same category as a used car salesman, you wouldn't trust anything they had to say. Negative campaigning is always unhelpful and unsavory.

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment. Proverbs 17:28 , 18:1

Synaesthesia/synesthesia

To test synaesthesia, V.S. Ramachandran and collaborators designed a test, the picture (on left). Pick out the twos as quickly as possible.

Most ordinary people can do it within about twenty seconds. (I can do it in about 2 seconds.) A majority of aesthetes supposedly see numbers or letters as colours e.g. five might be green and 2 red. But I feel the differences 5's are closed mouth and 2 are open mouth. In fact 5's are smooth, 3's are sharp and 2' simply slimey.

Here's another quick test:-



Do you hear, smell, feel(through touch), taste? Synaesthesia is a condition where stimulation for one of the senses provokes a response in another whether or not it has been directly activated.

I'm quite interested in the links between physical, emotional, and spiritual. Especially as discernment for me is linked to a semi-physical feeling.

Synesthesia is emotional. The experience is accompanied by a sense of certitude (the "this is it" feeling) and a conviction that what synesthetes perceive is real and valid. This accompaniment brings to mind that transitory change in self-awareness that is known as ecstasy. Ecstasy is any passion by which the thoughts are absorbed and in which the mind is for a time lost. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James spoke of ecstasy's four qualities of ineffability, passivity, noesis, and transience. These same qualities are shared by synesthesia.
Richard E. Cytowic http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-10-cytowic.html

Most spiritual directors, I know are concerned with the symbolic universe and the metaphorical nature of life especially in arts and natural forms. I wonder how many are synaesthetes?

cold rationalism and deep emotions

I'm taking a course in critical thinking and theological reflection and at times I get really frustrated, because I'm more a post-modern than modernist even though my basic analytical skills are quite reasonable. Emotions and passions are important and should be part of the evaluative process. Yet when I help people to write essays and it's important to conform to an academic standard but I'm getting to a point I don't like it. Feelings as intuitive process of judgment also has its place.

I really feel tonight that Feeling is more important than thinking anymore. Tonight I started watching a Taiwanese TV drama series called The Rose, I came across it because of a song by 阿桑 [Ah Sang] - 葉子 [The Leaf]. The music video (watch it here) was quite beautiful and immensely sad and it made me curious about where it came from. That started me on a pursuit which identified the TV drama and then the Taiwanese group S.H.E. and in fact all 3 members appear in the show and Ella Chen (E of S.H.E. ) takes a starring role. The Rose is a Taiwanese version of a Japanese Manga and its a wet tissue story of Cinderella. In fact after the first episode I'd already cried three times for the heroine. But for now the closing credits song Ah Sang's Ye Zi - The Leaf

A leaf, is a wing that does not know how to fly.
A wing: is a leaf that’s fallen into the sky.
Heaven, it wasn’t supposed to be a dream.
It’s just that I’ve forgotten a long time ago how I flew.
Loneliness is one person’s desire.
Desire is a group’s loneliness.
Love’s beginning was companionship.
But I also forgot who it was who needed the companionship.
By myself, I eat, travel, going and stopping everywhere.
And by myself, I read, write, and tell my heart to myself.
But here has my heart drifted to that I can't even see myself clearly?
I think I'm slowly, completely, losing you.

Life is all about a little bit of trust and a whole lot about needing hope. There's quite a bit of Cinderella in all of us.

Ten hours straight

Well I've had my first square meal since Monday, vegetable. chicken and rice cooked in a soup stock with creamed corn (3 cereal bowls full). Before that I had 5 bowls of chicken congee over 4 hours. Things have now changed considering in the last 3 days I'd consumed 2 slices of dry toast, one can of Campbells vegetable soup, a cereal bar, a packet of seaweed, and half a litre of concentrated Ribena (in hot drinks). Still it's good to start kicking again and I'm 6 pounds lighter than Monday.

Why the strange diet today? Well I've just completed 10 hours of video editing. I reviewed 5.5 hours of tape and chose the clips and then edited them to my sound score I'd created, mangled, assemble and put together. I am frequently amazed how things come together. word, images, and music. Given that the limits of my technology and software forces me to imagine a visual sequence, somehow put together something that matches that approximately in audio and then merge the two together using the score and video soundtracks. It is a process impossible to be analytical, it is only something you can feel and intuit. During the 10 hours I only stopped to pick up a bowl of food or move laundry on but kept at it, eating when I felt hungry, which was most of the day!

The fruit of my labour is 6 minutes 33 seconds of video for my international students event over Christmas. Perhaps you see that my personality type is INFJ thats J with a big "J". Even with bppv, some messed up blood sugar, and some problems regulating body temperature, I have to reach that blissful feeling of completing something, at least one small step. There are many more steps, and hurdles to jump but there is a good sense of moving again.

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. Acts 20:24