The Worm

Hey everyone,

Supposedly if you have a Mac you are safe unless you run virtual PC which of course I do because the best astrology software is only made for PCs.  In answer to Grace, I heard that there was evidence Amazon was infected but of course we’ll have to see what happens. I’m hoping that with all the spotlight on this worm, nothing will happen as the element of surprise will be gone. On the negative side, it could still happen at anytime if this thing is a form of cyber terrorism and is laying in wait for the right time. 

I have often wondered about the symbolism of 9/11 of course there is 911, the number we call when there is an emergency (besides it being a master number 11 and 9 +1+1= 11). And of course now April 1st is April fools day. It seems odd that Al Queda would use our own symbols against us, but it does seem there are always bizarre numerological elements to their choice of attacks. Often they pick master numbers or numbers that happen to be double digits, why? I don’t know enough about their  ideology to know if there is some significance  from their end or if this is just a weird coincidence.  Or perhaps they have chosen these numbers as some sort of coded message. If anyone has any theories about this or knows anything about radical Islamic esoteric philosophy I’d love for you to write in so I could post it on the readers/writers page and we could all learn a little more. Perhaps we could help stave off any future attacks if we can make out some pattern. 

Just a thought.

Hopefully you are not reading this on April 1st because you’ve stayed off the internet until you know you’re clear.

Best wishes to all you good people,

Denise

The Economy and The Worm…

I’m going to search the site for the post I made back during the automotive bail out. Before we gave them the money I posted we would do it, but ultimately those companies would fail. I was going on their astrological charts. Sad to say these companies have been making terrible decisions for a long time. But they aren’t the only ones, as we all know.

Perhaps my idea of spending the money on retraining programs for the auto workers isn’t such a bad idea as it seems the heads of US auto makers seem incapable of thinking outside the box. I really wish they would have gotten it together. This is the other economic punch I mentioned coming a few weeks ago in passing. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as last fall, but my pendulum seemed to think it’s going to be much worse than most people expect it to be. 

However, I do feel this will ultimately be the bottom and we will find our way out once we hit the other side of this wall. So don’t freak out if the market starts to really drop over the next few weeks, just ride it out, unless of course you have any American auto companies in your portfolio. In that case, it’s already too late. 

I wish the auto companies would have used their resources and talent to find a workable solution, a plan to push technology further so they could again become important in the field. It’s interesting that it was an American who invented the car (Henry Ford) and for years the car companies were like the computer companies always pushing themselves to come out with better and more beautiful models. And then, they got fat, lazy and indifferent. They seemed to rely on the good faith of the American consumer and their desire to buy American products instead of putting out the very best as they once had. This is what happens when corporations get too big, bloated and conservative. If they would have continued to innovate instead of trying to control the market place they wouldn’t be in this mess.

It reminds me a lot of the record industry which championed the move to digital from analogue. Everyone rushed out to replace all their favorite records on CD. It was supposed to be so much better and the record companies enjoyed enormous profits. Not only was the new format so much cheaper to produce, a matter of pennies per unit for major labels (not including marketing and touring costs for bands which they always had) but they were selling the new recordings, and their back catalogue like wild fire.

And when it was brought to their attention that copying digital music was perhaps a problem because there was no sonic degradation, they buried their heads in the sand. And then the next step when the MP3 format came out, instead of finding a way to embrace it, and incorporate the technology so that they could profit from it, they started suing kids who were file sharing.

Once the genie is unleashed you can’t put it back in the bottle. If an industry is built on technology, it doesn’t have the luxury of sitting back, it must always be pushing the edges and developing new ideas, new visions, new aesthetics or the fuel keeping its financial sun collapses into a white dwarf until its profits are so tight it cannibalizes itself and becomes a black hole. It seems that a lot of corporations after they have amazing super nova like success collapse in on themselves because instead of taking risks they fall prey to insatiable greed and ineptitude. 

Also there has been a lot of information coming out about this new computer worm which supposedly has infected at least 10,000,000 computers world wide. Be careful, especially on April 1 as there is supposed to be some sort of command given that day.

About 10 years ago I had a creepy premonition there would be a cyber attack on the world’s banking system meant to throw the world into a frenzy in an attempt to collapse the world economy. I hadn’t really thought about it in awhile as the stories about Bin Laden living in a cave hardly seemed the place a network of hackers would set up shop. But recruiting sociopaths and freaks around the globe with the spoils of looting the world’s cookie jar could be a very unholy alliance that I am beginning to wonder about in the case of this worm. I have a feeling this thing is meant to do something big, a sort of 9/11 on the internet and now that we have all the banking trouble, well, it could be an opportune time for someone of that ilk to do something very bad, so watch yourself and don’t do any on-line banking, especially if you have a PC until you are absolutely positive you are not infected.

Best wishes and many blessings to all,

Denise

Answering Readers and other things…

I just wanted to address some of the points Jeff has made. I think he really clarifies the differences in the two viewpoints between conservatives and liberals very well. I understand the lack of faith in our government and the fact that there is corruption and stupidity on all sides of every issue in politics. I would never advocate a one party system.

My back was fractured when I was 12 and a disc herniated. I spent the entire year laying on my back, by myself in my bedroom. The only education I received was American history and the constitution as I had to pass (this was in Illinois) a constitution test in 7th grade in order to move onto 8th grade. Needless to say, I got one hour a week from the principle who would come to my home and tutor me. I spent a lot of time reading the constitution, the bill of rights and reading about American History. The ideals and people that founded our nation were profound and beautiful. Our forefathers did an amazing job of working out potential problems. They had incredible foresight. However they did not foresee all things that came up in the last century which have truly corrupted our government. And of course they had built in the 2nd amendment not so people could hunt animals, but so we could have a revolution if the government got out of control. Problem is of course (which of course they couldn’t foresee, perhaps if DiVinci had been one of the founders) the advent of nuclear weapons and military technology that no rag tag militia could fairly fight against. 

I really don’t have total faith in the Democrats. I just think they are less corrupt, more like normal politicians than the Republicans. And not all Republicans fall into that category. And especially regular American people who are not politicians but who identify with the party and vote Republican. They are not any better or worse than people who vote for Democrats. I’m talking only about the leadership of the Republican party; since the Nixon administration there has been a clarion call attracting many corrupt politicians with agendas to exploit the common working American people for their own personal gain on that side of the fence.

There are 2 types of politicians, those who get into politics to serve and lead. And those who get into politics to exploit, loot and are on power trips. I don’t think the Republican party has always been this way, and certainly the vast majority of people who vote Republican are not this way. In actuality I think the Republican party has manipulated many people’s deep love of this country, of tradition, stability, pride and our identity as self-reliant people against us.

But if we left morality up to the wealthy one percent to take care of the poor, the sick and whoever else, do you think they would do it? No. Certainly the feudal lords of Europe weren’t going around giving out loafs of bread to starving children, they were to busy denying them education and prosecuting them for stealing bread so they could put them to work in prison camps. With Democracy and laws, came taxation built on levels of ability to pay, the end of debtors prisons (when you could actually go to prison for life for not being able to pay someone you owed money to, can you imagine how many people would be in jail now if this law hadn’t been changed.) Government can’t solve all of our problems, but it can and should create a moral bone structure to hang our civilization’s body on.

As much as we like to pretend that we are all working on a level playing field with the same amount of talent, intelligence and acumen as everyone else. This is just blatantly untrue. Many of us our handicapped by our environments as children. We seem to be able to muster compassion for the abused child, but as soon as he turns 18 we seem to expect this person to magically be able to shake off the horrors of their childhood and compete in a game fixed by the wealthy.

I grew up in an area of Chicago that was very wealthy and I knew countless kids who were of average intelligence who went to ivy league schools because their parents were wealthy enough to give endowments to those institutions and it was family tradition to go to Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth. Is that fair? No. All the conservatives who claim B.S. on the whole affirmative action thing don’t complain about the wealthy legacy kids who get in with subpar SAT scores and average grades. Because it’s really not that they mind the game being rigged, they just want it rigged in their favor. And the people who are in power in the political arena (especially on the Republican side) are from extremely privelaged backgrounds. This hasn’t always been the case, but in the last 30 years the Republican party has drifted into the lane that promotes corporatism, gives a pass to the wealthiest one percent and turns a blind eye toward graft. The Democrats still have real people participating, like Bill Clinton (despite his personal sex addiction problems and foibles) he was a real guy who was raised by a single mother, in a poor family and through his brilliance and determination made something of himself. This is the America I believe in. This is the America I want to see win out. I don’t want our country to become a feudal one, where the wealthy one percent control us through their lobbyists and corporations. I want all Americans to be represented and to have a voice. I want to stay a democracy and not be bowled over by corporate interests masquerading as moral voices.

You know, the Democrats aren’t all that. They are really annoying and pretty lame. They don’t take the reigns, they blather around, seem to try to bend to too many voices and don’t have the passion it takes to convince others to get on board. This has been their problem now for over 30 years and I totally understand why they upset people who want things to be dealt with cleanly. Democrats don’t do this. For those (and this is the majority of Americans) who want decisive, clear leadership the Democrats don’t always know how to provide this. The Republicans have a huge advantage here, they have a common goal that binds them together which the Democrats don’t have. Democrats go into public service for all kinds of different reasons with all kinds of different agendas and are forced to compromise and work together in a quilt work fashion.

The Republicans have the binding passion of greed which they found a way to sell (ironically) to average Americans as Christian morality. However their policies and private lives show nothing of them living up to their supposed morality.  I’m going to refer you to an earlier post here about the shadow self as it applies to the split that Republicans utilize to sell their advocacy for the wealthiest taking not only the share they already have but more of yours too so that the money can “trickle down.” Or so they want you to believe.

So far I haven’t been to any developing nation or as Jeff aptly stated, communist country, where the money ever managed to trickle down. Once those on top have anything their heart could ever desire at their fingertips why would they randomly want to share it with strangers? This goes against human nature. We are naturally selfish creatures which is why we have laws, moral codes, and religions that teach us how to be more than just self-absorbed, self-satisfying, opportunistic, uncompassionate beasts.

Let me just say here as an example I’ve known many very famous people (through my work). They can have anything they want whenever they want it, no one ever says “no” to them. They often surround themselves with adoring admirers (not all but many do this) and see themselves as better than everyone else. They often get sucked into a weird cartoonish state of being where they are living entirely a life of the ego. They may have started out as good people and are not necessarily bad people, but they loose percpective and do horrible things to others because they  no longer see other people as human beings anymore. And how could they? They are not participating in real relationships anymore, just the ego heroine of fame feeding their insatiable insecurity and making them more and more pathologically narcissistic. 

My point is, we all need to be held accountable. And we live in a very narcissistic culture where value has been placed on being special, famous and wealthy to the exclusion of common sense and common decency. It seems anything goes if you can get rich or famous from it.  I don’t believe in that. I believe in personal integrity and spiritual growth both of those values are almost impossible to hold onto once a person becomes famous or insanely wealthy (I’m not talking comfortable or even rich but in that one percent club wealthy.)

Spiritual growth requires honest mirroring by loved ones and the world around you which the obscenely rich and famous don’t get from others anymore because that person becomes objectified and identified as a symbol, no longer allowing others to have real exchanges. While this is great for the ego, no one ever disagrees with you, you are always the greatest genius and everyone stops to listen to what you have to say, you actually, eventually become something of a persona, an empty shell, and often this can lead to great feelings of isolation, depression and obsessive behavior. Which is why so many celebrities have drug problems.

And of course in the case of the insanely wealthy, everyone wants a piece of their pie, and they can’t trust anyone around them. They never really know if people love or care about them for who they are or for the money they have. You think this problem sounds easy, but it’s actually very messy and dark and leads to behavior like Bernie Madoff who so desperately needed to stay in that special billionare club that he started ripping people off when the market started going down and he realized it was easier to con people than to actually invest their money. This is the sickness that can happen with outrageous overabundance as Christ said, “it’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.” Because the disassociation that happens with that sort of wealth leads to callousness, and  bad behavior.

Average people like my in-laws, who are Republicans, make the mistake of believing that heads of corporations and the super wealthy have the same values they do. Let me tell you, they don’t. Their values are so far a flung from ordinary Americans that they may as well be Martians. There are of course good people who are exceptions and do amazing humanitarian work with the money they have made, but really they are probably less than one percent of the ubber rich.

While we all fantasize that our problems would go away and life would be perfect if we were just rich and famous, the opposite is actually true. Being in the spotlight only magnifies problems and immense wealth creates an emotional telescoping phenomena where your ability to relate to people who are struggling financially disappears and instead of feeling compassion for those people the wealthy find a bizarre righteous anger toward the unfortunate so they can stave off their guilt at not doing anything to help.

So what I want to say is that I don’t believe we can leave people’s lives, health and education up to the potential good graces of the wealthy one percent. I’ll leave everyone with this weird random example. The first time I went to London, when I was in my early 20s I met a guy who was a monarchist. I actually didn’t even know they still existed. He believed that the best form of government was what he called a “benevolent monarchy.” He explained that in that system things got done quickly and the benevolent king to good care of all of his subjects, sort of like a good dad takes care of all of his kids. But then I said, “But what happens if the monarch is not benevolent, like King Henry or Caligula.” 

“Well, I’m talking about a benevolent monarchy,” he firmly stated again.

“Yes, but that’s the problem if its a monarchy the people can’t do anything to get rid of the next in line and what if they’re crazy or a horrible person. In a democracy you can vote a nut jobber out of office. There are checks and balances in place that help eliminate the possibility of someone terrible taking over.” 

 And again his answer was, “Well, I’m talking about a benevolent monarchy.”

What we do in our Democracy with checks and balances, laws and amendments had its counter part in the world of business as regulations and the notion that corporations being led by the best people would perform the best and therefore those leaders would continue to move skyward. But instead with deregulation came easy money through scams, the ability to lie about your company, to cheat your shareholders and to fail upwards based on lies and fudging numbers. 

Our country is as much about capitalism as it is about democracy. And in order for capitalism to survive it needs to have enforceable rules to play by or no one on the world stage is going to want to play with us anymore. Those toxic loans we bought up that have been helping the stock market, are helping because by our government standing behind our corporations we are saying to the world, we screwed up and we won’t let everyone fall down, we stand behind our system and we want to continue playing ball with everyone. If we didn’t do this the entire world economy would fall apart due to lack of confidence in us the champions of capitalism.

Anyway, enough blabbing.

Best wishes to all and many blessings,

Denise

Answering Readers.

Here’s something from Jeff I’d like to address because I think there is a lot of confusion over this subject among many Americans especially oder Americans and those who are more conservative in their bent.

jeff

Hi Denise, I’m a recently new visitor to your blog. Your politcal pursuasions are obvious. Isn’t it wonderful we live in a free country where you can say and write about just about anything you want. For that, I know we are both thankful. However, with all due respect, I must say that the socialist countries I have traveled to all have a HUGE gulf between the rich and VERY poor – and if there is a middle class (European countries) it is not nearly as broad of a spectrum as it is here. I am not saying capitalism is the answer to everything. It does however encourage personal responsibility much more that socialist idealism (hence the whole mortgage bailout here in the U.S. will discourage personal responsibility). I really feel you are being dishonest by painting republicans with a broad brush (many of them have very socialist tendancies) that they want the rich to get richer and poor to get poorer. That is ridiculous and dillusional. Please tell me one socialist or communist country where a poor person has the opportunity to better their life than the U.S.A. Do you know any Venezuealens or Cubans that live here in the U.S. who are anxious to return to their homeland? I do not. These are socialist countries where the leaders always speak about the “common good”, yet their intentions are really more about their own power and insecurity. Please Denise – do some soul searching and be honest about this subject. You know very well that human tendancies, whether they be conservative or liberal will veer selfishly out of control if there are no checks and balances. As you also know, the wisdom (of check and balances) our founding fathers had in writing our Constitution and founding documents was influenced by the Almighty himself. By the way, as perhaps you can tell with your psychic abilities, I am a sole provider supporting a family (a wife and 3 small children) and I have come from very modest beginnings. Respectfully, Jeff

 

Hi Jeff,

I’m so glad you brought up these points. Firstly Cuba is not a socialist country it is a Marxist Communist state. And so are the other examples of countries that you noted. They are not actually socialist countries. Socialism is very different from Communism and Communism is horrible. Marx and Lennon didn’t take into consideration people’s greed and need for power over other people. I totally agree that people in (actually I think all of them) nations which are Communist not only fail their people in the most basic of principles but also generally turn into dictatorships. Marx didn’t take into consideration that politicians once they are in office, are not likely to spread the wealth but rather let their darker nature take over and hog the wealth and they literally rob their own people. It is disgusting and I revile it.

What I advocate is a socialist Democracy closer to what the Europeans and Canadians practice, where there is a built in eject button and safety measures against abuse of power. I am a staunch supporter of our constitution unlike the people in the Bush administration. Here’s a short definition of socialism: social security, the fire department, police department, public education, the library system and in other democracies it includes health care, college education, maternity & paternity leave, guaranteed paid vacations for anyone who works, arts funding, psychological services for those who need them. Socialism can be worked into any other system of government like a democracy or theoretically even a dictatorship but of course it isn’t because it is based on compassion for humanity which dictators usually don’t posses. Communism is based on the writings of Karl Marx from a book called the Communist Manifesto. His ideas were later championed by different dictators as a way to get into power only to have everything change once they got in. Marx’s ideas were (as I see it) psychologically naive and childishly idealistic.

I actually have traveled around the world many times over. I’ve been to pretty much every western European nation numerous times, have been to Australia a couple of times, and have traveled to Indonesia and of course Mexico and Canada, so I’m not speaking from an abstract point of view. According to reality and against many people’s desire to say that America’s always #1, the standard of living is visibly much higher in Scandinavian countries than it is here and that’s a fact.

Here’s a link to the ranking in terms of standard of living you can check out. We have 92% of the world’s wealth controlled by just 5% of Americans. Many countries with GDP’s much, much lower than ours rank higher than we do in quality of life because of that, even though technically they have less money. This is what I’m talking about. We are ranked at number 10 for standard of living.

 http://skeptically.org/economics/id21.html

I advocate eliminating poverty and giving all of our people the respect and help they need to contribute in the most useful way they can, not becoming a communist dictatorship. Ironically, the closest we have ever gotten to true corporatism (which by Mussolini’s definition was what fascism was) and thereby a dictatorship was via George W. Bush. Not only did he bow so heavily to corporate interests and put everything into the private sector including warfare, but also went ahead and finished deregulating everything in the corporate sector so corporations didn’t have to play by the same rules that we as individuals do.

I think Greenspan showed either his stupidity or his immense naivete when he said that he believed corporations would self-regulate. That worked so well in early 20th century America, and Dickinson’s England and now is working wonders in China. Unchecked capitalism is just as naive and stupid as communism because both fail to take into account human nature, greed, power plays, corruption, selfishness, nepotism and just general psychology. This is why we have laws to protect ourselves from one another. We are not made of love, purity, light, goodness and angels. We all have our darker natures which I talked about in the entry about the shadow self. 

My husband’s parents are very conservative. They are wonderful people who, I’ve come to realize, see America through the fixed lens of their own childhood imaginings. Where everything is black and white, good guys and bad guys, and we are always on the side of good. Although they mean well, there is a general lack of self reflection about how our government works. It is not a fixed entity but a living organism that changes and grows. The America of 2009 is not the America of the 1950s when they were coming of age and it never will be again. We have grown, changed and become intricately connected to all the nations of the world in ways we never could have imagined back then.

It has been my observation that conservative people tend to have a sentimental view of America and constructive criticism about making it a better place is greeted in the same fashion a nasty comment about their mother would be. Liberals on the other hand are a diverse group, have different agendas and often not only criticize the government, the opposing party but their own party as well. They are by their very nature self-reflective and idealistic. And it doesn’t always serve them well because often they can get too far out on a ledge and all the petty bickering can lead to a lack of seeing the bigger picture. 

I actually see myself as a pretty moderate person. I’m compassionate, empathic and want all people to have a good quality of life. I really don’t think that’s too crazy considering we can do a lot to accomplish this with very little sacrifice. I don’t think that a 36% tax going up to a 39% tax on the 5% of people who control more than 90% of the wealth is anything close to socialism. One of the richest men in the world is the founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad and since he lives in Sweden pays at least 50% income tax, yet he manages to do just fine without belly aching because he knows that his money is going to make his country a better place and he has more than enough for generations of his family to live like royalty.

I personally think if you make 10 billion dollars a year you should pay the government half of it because it is your karmic duty to give back when the Universe has given so much to you. And if you are so greedy that you’d rather step over people living in tents with their kids by a river who are slowly starving to death so you can have that extra 1 and a half billion dollars you are a despicable human being who deserves to trade places with that person in the tent. Anyone who can tell themselves that people should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and buck up is not only uncompassionate but naive. There are many people in this world who don’t have the same advantages that everyone else has, such as the mentally or physically handicapped, or even people who are of below normal IQ’s. Should they just shrivel up and die because they can’t do it alone? Ronald Reagan the great advocate of this ended up with Alzheimer’s, if he had been dealt a couple of hard blows and lost his fortune, who would have taken care of him? He got rid of all the halfway houses for people with mental problems back in the 1980s when he was president.

As a mystic I see this issue as much bigger and perhaps one of the greatest tests of human character. We are meant to help one another, learn from one another, have compassion for each other, love each other. Those are the messages of Christ. His message was clear and ringing yet instead of the compassion, non-judgement and love he preached Christians and our “Christian” country has taken a very old testament view of things. When Christ said, “I am the way,” he meant follow his example. But this is a tall order and one that requires intense spiritual, psychological and emotional work to accomplish. It’s a whole lot easier to turn the other way when your brother is starving and say, “It’s his own damn fault. He should pull himself up by his bootstraps. Look at me I had it hard, blah, blah, blah.” Yet that person has no idea the struggles the homeless person they are judging endured and if the right set of circumstances hit anyone could end up in that situation as so many are finding themselves now. And then would you want people to judge you? Having not walked in your shoes? Or would you want compassion and a helping hand.

We come into this world dependant on our mother. Our whole life is intertwined with other people and we are given things, opportunities, education, and countless other things, even just support and love from our families, yet we seem to forget this. No one does anything alone. No one person is better than another. No one person more valuable. We all have something to give and we all have something to learn. It is a sin of vanity that makes a person judge another and a sin of selfishness which allowed capitalism to run amok just as communism did before it.

Both have fallen.

Now lets move on and stop playing this game, the game of division, lets stand together and help one another become a strong tribe, watch each others backs. Let’s take this opportunity to reinvent ourselves so we maybe born again into a greater version of who we are, let’s face our nation’s shadow self squarely (and it does have a shadow as all living things do) and grow into a more evolved, compassionate, educated, civilized and decent people. This is all I advocate. You can call me a lefty, a communist, a socialist or whatever makes you comfortable. But the truth I’m writing about here will make itself known. I only hope you learn the lesson before the hammer comes down and this lesson is learned the hard way.

Honestly, I worry that our country still hasn’t really gotten what’s going on and it’s going to have to get worse before it gets better before the lessons of compassion can be learned. I also worry that President Obama will be too pliable and take a long time to slowly change things to where he wants them, but for many on the left they may feel disheartened as he won’t go quickly enough for them. And for many people who are desperate right now, they too might be upset because they need quick help, not a slow moving tortoise approach while they are drowning. 

Best wishes and blessings,

Denise

E-Mail/Computer Trouble

There is something weird going on with my computer. It has been freaking out more than usual the past couple of days. It doesn’t seem to let me do anything except open up my Window’s word file. I have a feeling it’s the ghosty who has been turning the hot water faucet on and clanking around in hard soled shoes at 5 AM, waking me up. Pretty sure it’s my dad visiting from the other side.

It seems that in the past few weeks since I was working with some spirits, I started having all the energy drained out of my battery faster than a kid in a straw sucking competition. My computer hasn’t wanted to stay on and I’ve had ridiculous problems with my e-mail, it seems to have a mind of itself. Anyway there’s a ghost (literally) in my machine so it’s taking me longer to get to my e-mail and even to get on the blog. I am very stubborn so fear not I will get to everyone’s questions and work tirelessly to answer all the winners and those who need readings. Just give me a few more days then normal while I sort out my problems.

As I write now my battery power went from 99% down to 34% in about 10 minutes. And the stupid thing is actually plugged into the wall. Even when it shows the battery is charging it goes down, like now in about 10 seconds it went to 32%. It’s ridiculous. I thought it was a connection problem and spent some time adjusting and straightening the prong that fits into the computer from the electrical plug in and while that made a solid connection I’m still experiencing the drain when dealing with anything other than this piece I’m writing. Now you have to admit that’s weird. I’m working on a fictional piece (which I referred to a while back) and when I work on that my computer is a perfect gentle woman. The ghost is even given me grief about writing this post. It won’t let me spell check or edit or move the cursor so I’m giving up for now.

I’ll let my computer rest and juice up then get back to answering e-mails later tonight and tomorrow.

Best wishes and blessings,

Denise

Tea Tree Oil & Toenail Fungus (don’t read if you’re grossed out by stuff like this)

I know this is kind of weird but back in the early/mid 1990s I went to Australia and toured the country for a month. Back then tea tree oil was unheard of here in the States. I bought some, unsure of what to do with it, there was only a mysterious bit of information I was given by an Aussie that it was an indigenous cure for different skin troubles.

After experimenting with it now for almost 15 years I’ve found it does some pretty remarkable things. Because it is an oil it penetrates deep into the skin tissues and cells and kills all the bad stuff on a cellular level.

I am prone to skin infections actually once had cellulitis which is an infection of the skin cells which can kill you. I was on antibiotics for several months after IV antibiotics. I was on so many antibiotics that I ended up in the hospital with an infection in my intestine because the antibiotics had killed all the good stuff and left me raw. I ended up having to have more antibiotics. Let me tell you that was one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced and my back has been fractured, I’ve had a baby, have horrible migraines where I want to blow my head off, kidney stones and herniated a disc and slipped one as well, and this pain was so bad I was passing out from it. It was intense. (I’m fond of blaming my deceased old Ashkenazi Jew dad for his ancient sperm because I was born an old woman with all kinds of ridiculous health problems. The Ashkenazi are not super healthy people as it turns out my dad died at 63 which was pretty average for his other 9 brothers and sisters.) But anyway, enough of my asides, when I would notice an infection brewing in my skin I began applying tea tree oil to it and low and behold, after several days of dowsing myself with it, the infection would go away.

So last summer I was having more back trouble and my husband insisted I go have a message. I’m not found of them unless the person giving them is very clear and focused or I pick up all kinds of stuff about the person and its very unnerving and distracting. Well, I made the mistake of soaking in the hot tub and taking a shower (wearing special shoes because of course I was paranoid this would happen and you’ll see it did). And of course I developed some weird fungus on my toenail shortly thereafter. 

My doctor would not give me the normal Lamisil or whatever it is that a doctor gives people with fungus’ growing on their toe nails, because it’s hard on the liver and I’m taking way too many drugs to control my seizures and brain problems (as I’m sure all of you can tell.) So my toe was getting pretty crazy when I had the idea to try tea tree oil. Well, I did and it actually seems to be curing the fungus. It went from black to clear, then I could actually cut off the fungus part which had previously been like a piece of steel and now was like a relatively normal, but very thick toe nail. 

Moral of the story. For those of you who don’t have health insurance or don’t like western drugs, try tea tree oil. Dowse your toe in it or infection, cover it with gauze or cotton, wrap it in medical tape. Continue to do that at least once a day before bedtime, twice is best but once works pretty well too for at least 3-7 days. You will see remarkable results. 

Just a weird random tip. I think it is actually good for acne as well, but I haven’t tried it for that.

Best wishes and many blessings,

Denise

The What Does Denise Look Like Contest, Photo…

Hey everyone. I’m getting over my weirdness, or my desire to be invisible, like a giant brain stashed away in a closet for people to consult with and am going to show you a photo of me. I’m not wearing any make-up and my natural hair color if you look closely can be seen at the roots. 

My mother is on the right. Not a bad looking lady I must say and my daughter is on my lap. She’s too cute, looks just like her dad. And the weird lady is you guessed it, me!

I generally look better with make-up, some sleep and a proper hair cut (I actually cut my hair myself because I didn’t want to waste time going to a salon that’s how lame I am), but having a baby creates obstacles to these mundane things.

A Free Non-Time Consuming Way to Help Animals

Here’s a copy of an e-mail sent to me by a friend. Basically this is a link to a website where just clicking on their button generates money for their cause. It’s free. It’s easy and you are helping out lots of innocent abandoned pets.

Here it is:

Animal Rescue

Hi, all you animal lovers.

This is pretty simple. Please tell ten friends to tell ten friends today! The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of getting free food donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute (how about 20 seconds) to go to their site and click on the purple box ‘fund food for animals’ for free. This doesn’t cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors / advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to help abandoned / neglected animals in exchange for advertising. Here’s the web site! Pass it along to people you know.

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/

 

Best wishes and many blessings to all. Don’t forget to e-mail me at: happypeopleusa@aol.com to collect your prizes!

Denise

What Does Denise Look Like Contest Winners…

OK, it is pretty amazing all of you got something right. Some of you nailed me at different points in my life. Tckal pretty much nailed what I looked like before I dyed my hair back toward its natural color and cut it to shoulder length. She thought I looked like Peggy Olson from Mad Men. I’m a bit more quirky and my features are sharper but if one were going to pick an actress, she’s pretty darn close.

But I’d have to say that Mira Kelly had the highest number of things right and here they are:

I am 5’7″ and actually was 5’6″ until I was in my late 20s when I grew an inch. My favorite color is purple. I am 135 pounds. My hair is dark brown, wavy and worn in a bob about half way between my chin and shoulders. I do have a tendency to look concerned a lot, she mentioned 2 prominent wrinkles which are often there but luckily I have avoided for the time being. She was one year off in my birth year. I’m actually a year younger than she thought but very close. I do have a crystal ball on my shelf which I don’t normally use but have in the past. My eye color is actually a gray-blue (a lot of people think I have hazel or brown eyes because they are dark). My father actually had blue eyes with a brown ring in the center which is similar to what she described. I do wear a 9 size shoe. I am a crappy cook, but do make a mean a great penne arrabiata (and a few other things, I’m a pretty good baker because I love cookies.) My eyes are closer together than any golden mean would suggest they should be. I do have a heart arrhythmia and my heart gets out of sync sometimes. I do like to wear flat shoes. I actually am incapable of walking in heels so I don’t have much of a choice there. I do have pierced ears and my mom did get them pierced for me although I was not 4 but 12 at the time. And did have my left (not the right ear, but come on its very close) pierced a couple more times when I was in my early 20s although they did close up along with the nose ring I also had for a short period of time. And it’s true that when I wear nail polish it usually just wears off and I do find it impractical because I do a lot of work with my hands (such as painting, building, sawing, drawing, knitting, etc.).

Andrea Zak did well. She got that I wore reading glasses and my height, the fact that I’m too lazy to wear make-up and have pale skin.

Todd Brady did very well. If it were 1984 he would have gotten me spot on. He seemed to be describing the high school version of me. He got my height, pegged my taste in music and even described my cat from that period of time as well as my asymmetrical haircut and the color was indeed a light brownish blond back then. I was also about 125 pounds and drove a puke green pinto station wagon which is kind of like a VW in that it has a rounded quality to it. Although a VW bug is much cooler and actually my brother had one when he was in high school. Again, spot on for 1984. Another winner, he was reading the past.

 

Id

Id did well with the color of my hair the fact that it is shoulder length. I do have very prominent and distinct eyebrows which my husband often exaggerates when drawing a cartoon likeness of me. I also do have a strong jaw line but not in a square way, rather kind of pointy. And I do wear reading glasses and during certain periods of my life, oddly, I have had to wear glasses due to astigmatism although it seems to vanish and come back at different points in my life. Right now it doesn’t seem to be a problem. I have a lot of other problems, but that’s not one of them.

Sally in Dallas was mostly right in terms of height and weight, hair thickness and color.

Wynter was right about my love of changing hair color. It has been everything to bleached out platinum blonde/gray to purple, red, blue, brown, black, blonde and natural looking red.

Iris was right about me wearing a lot of black although I’m over it now. I did spend a good 20 years wearing almost no other color but black. And although I am an Aquarius my ruling planet of both my sun sign and moon sign are Virgo. I also have Mercury as the ruler of my chart which rules Virgo so I have a Virgo feel about me.

Hello!

Got the color of my eyes right.

tranquilsleep444 or aka Cheri. Got the color and length and style of my hair. And the mischieveious look which I’ve often been accused of having.
Sally Herr got the incoming grey in my hair. And qualities some people have told me I exhibit.

fitzgeraldo got the long nose and angular face and a haircut I have had in the past as well as a style of glasses I’ve worn before.

 

It’s interesting that many of you thought I had freckles and was kind of on the short side. This must have been in a previous life. Anyway, if you see your name was put in bold font it means you are one of the big winners so please e-mail me your birth date, time and place so I can run a chart for you. I will then send everyone a computerized chart. The grand prize winner, Mira Kelly will get several different print outs sent to her, a total of 3 detailing different areas of her and her life. And for everyone whose name I mentioned you all are also winners and can e-mail me one yes/no question for me to answer via e-mail. Remember it has to be a simple yes/no and just one question and I will answer it. Of course all winners can ask a yes/no question to me via e-mail and I will answer it as part of their prize.

Congratulations to all who won and participated. You all did really well. And actually everyone got something right.

Thanks for participating and I will put a picture up of myself in the coming month or so.

Best to all and many blessings,

Denise

AIG & Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow made in an interview with David Letterman made an an interesting point about AIG. Basically, she said that if they are so giant and important that we can’t afford to let them go under and we as tax payers have to support their company, then they should be socialized. Meaning they should be owned by the tax payers. 

In essence they were a huge part of the enormous Wall Street scheme that brought down the economy. Once regulations were removed (or as I like to call them laws, or more aptly, legal boundaries meant to protect people from crooks, liars, thieves and murderers) bankers and Wall Street went crazy insuring bad loans, knowing damn well theses were crap loans, but not caring because they were selling these crap loans off to people who trusted their company and their company ratings.

Oh, yeah, and part of the math problem that ruined the world was that this formula (mentioned in the previous post) was applied in a way that made it look as if there was no risk to these insanely risky, often fudged (for the purpose of getting them through) loans. So in essence AIG did not directly have to take the risk, they covered the butts of the companies who were going nuts with the new scam of giving home loans to people who couldn’t afford them. The bankers, brokers and insurance companies knew full well it was going to implode, but they were betting on the other guy taking the hit while they pocketed the money.

This is some seriously disturbed behavior and just proves the stupidity of supposedly naive people like (and literally) Alan Greenspan who believe somehow business people are morally superior to the rest of humanity and thus don’t need things like laws (i.e. regulations) to keep their fingers out of other people’s cookie jars.

I will announce the winners of the competition later tonight.

Best to all,

Denise