Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Why You Should Say 'Thank You' Instead of 'Sorry'

IMAGE CREDIT:

YAO XIAO

If you're anything like me, you might find yourself apologizing for everything, even when it's not your fault. While often portrayed as a female issue, the tendency to put yourself down or unnecessarily assume blame isn't relegated to women; the Independent's blog indy100, for example, points out "there are 15 British apologies for every 10 American ones."

Chinese artist Yao Xiao (who is currently based in Queens, New York) thinks you shouldn't apologize just for existing or needing something. These things aren't wrong, so they shouldn't be treated like they are. In a series of poignant cartoons, Xiao shows how the best replacement for "sorry" might be "thank you."

"Apologizing for being present/being vulnerable and open was something I used to do," Xiao told indy100. "Acknowledging that you appreciate someone who cared for you is a very nice thing to do and makes both parties feel great."

The helpful comics are part of an ongoing series called Baopu. Although deeply personal to the author, most people find the comics to be wholly relatable.

When not working on life-changing comics, Xiao also illustrates book covers, album art, beautiful graphic designs, and even the artwork for Katy Perry's single, "Dark Horse."

You can see more of her work on her website, or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Images courtesy of Yao Xiao.

March 22, 2016 - 1:00pm

Rebecca OConnell

Rebecca O'Connell is an assistant editor for mentalfloss.com. She spends her free time prowling flea markets, making increasingly elaborate grilled cheeses, and watching 90s cult television. She lives in Brooklyn with two roommates and a dog with more sass than fur.

Friday, November 6, 2015

Chinese Biological Clock

The Chinese biological clock shows the intervals in which the energy circulates through the parts of our body, and every two hours, it is strongest in a particular area of our body.

Then in that part of the body, if there is any problem, the symptoms at that time are the most prominent.

Our body, despite all known systems, the digestive, nervous, circulation, lymph system, contains an energy system of meridians. Meridians are channels such as blood vessels, through which passes the life energy, thereby they affect the proper functioning of the body and the exchange of substances in it.

the-chinese-clock-does-not-make-mistakes-discover-which-organ-in-your-body-does-not-work-well-600x315

There are 12 main meridians and each belongs to a body organ after which it takes its name and which gives its function. These meridians are the ones of lungs, large intestine, stomach, spleen, heart, small intestine, bladder, heart area, kidney, duodenum, gallbladder and liver.

According to the yin / yang theory, meridians are divided into six couples- 6 yin and 6 yang meridians. Yin meridians include organs which perform functions of collection, storage and processing of substances and energy in the body: lungs, spleen, heart, kidneys, heart area and the area of the liver.

Ying meridians include hollow organs whose function is exchange, excretion (substance, energy): colon, stomach, small intestine, bladder, duodenum and gallbladder.

According to the rules of Chinese medicine and the law of rhythm, each meridian corresponds to certain organs and bodily functions, running at full strength in a cycle of 24 hours, for 2 hours, and 12 hours later, also for two hours, it rests or has a low level of activity.

A doctor of Chinese medicine will first ask the patient at what time of day do the symptoms of the disease or disorder in the body appear. Thus, he will know which part of the body is the problem, that means, where the energy circulates with difficulties or where there is too much energy, too, which is not good.

It is advisable to follow the biological clock and write down the time of the day when symptoms appear, such as fatigue, pain, and the like. Also, it is good to note the time when you have the most energy, and when you wake at night- it also indicates a problem with a particular part of the body.

Time of maximum function

from 1 – 3 am- liver (detoxification, muscles and eyes)

from 3am – 5 am-lungs(skin)

from 5am – 7 am-colon (assimilation, elimination, skin)

from 7am – 9 am- stomach (lymph, food digestion)

from 9am – 11 am-spleen, pancreas (lymph, food digestion)

from 11am – 1 pm-heart (artery blood circulation)

from 1pm – 3 pm-small intestine (digestion, assimilation, arteries)

from 3pm – 5pm -bladder (bones, teeth, elimination, cleaning)

from 5pm – 7pm- kidneys (bones, teeth, ears, filtration, elimination)

from 7pm – 9pm- cardiac layer (constriction of blood vessels)

from 9pm – 11pm- duodenum (thermoregulation)

from 11pm – 1am- gallbladder (digestion, muscles, eyes)

Time of minimal functions or rest

from 1am – 3 am- small intestine (digestion, assimilation of the arteries)

from 3am -5 am-bladder (bones, teeth, cleaning elimination)

from 5am – 7 am-kidney disease (bones, teeth, ears, filtration, elimination)

from 7am- 9am- the heart layer (constriction of blood vessels)

from 9am- 11am- duodenum (thermoregulation)

from 11am – 1pm – gallbladder (digestion, muscles, eyes)

from 1pm – 3pm -liver (detoxification, muscles and eyes)

from 3pm – 5pm – lungs (skin)

from 5pm- 7pm- colon (assimilation, elimination, skin)

from 7pm – 9pm – stomach (lymph, food and digestion)

from 9pm – 11pm- spleen, pancreas (lymph, food digestion)

from 11pm – 1 am- heart(artery blood circulation)

When an organ is at its energetic peak, the one on the opposite side of the biological clock (12 hour difference) is at its the lowest energy level.

For example, between 1 and 3am, the liver has reached its peak and the small intestine is at the lowest energy level. So if you eat late at night, the food is not well absorbed in the small intestine, which means you have to avoid some activities at the time when the energy of the body involved in that activity is lowest.

During the time of maximum activity all functions are accelerated. If there are diseases of excess energy that burden the appropriate organic system, they then show the strongest symptoms and that is the convenient time to take means to reduce excess energy.

On the contrary, if the appropriate organ at the maximum time shows weakness, it should be strengthened. Natural medicine has numerous funds that can intervene in the event of redundancy and lack of energy, including acupuncture, homeopathy, herbs, and other assets.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Who Invented Memorial Day?

On May 1, 1865, freed slaves gathered in Charleston, South Carolina to commemorate the death of Union soldiers and the end of the American Civil War. Three years later, General John Logan issued a special order that May 30, 1868 be observed as Decoration Day, the first Memorial Day — a day set aside “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.”

At the time, the nation was reunited politically, but it remained culturally divided, and so did Memorial Day observations. In the North, the federal government created national cemeteries for men who died in the war, while state governments from New York to Michigan gradually made Decoration Day an official holiday throughout the 1870s. In the South, from April to June, women dressed in white and knelt beneath statues of fallen Confederate leaders; they told stories about the men who appeared in portraits lining the walls of many Southern homes. By the early 20th century, as Americans faced enemies abroad, many of the surviving Civil War veterans recognized their shared wartime history and reconciled their differences — turning Memorial Day into a national holiday.

John A. Logan (1826-1886), American politician and soldier, who was called the greatest volunteer General of the Civil War

As America recognizes the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, we would do well to revisit the origins of Memorial Day among freedpeople in Charleston. While they honored those who fought for their emancipation (which also celebrate[d] its 150th birthday [in 2012]), it was not simply a moment of great triumph and celebration for freedpeople, but a complicated process that led to the unexpected death of hundreds of thousands of former slaves.

While former slaves venerated the staggering number of Union soldiers who died during the war, few have observed the ways in which war and emancipation led to the astonishing mortality of many ex-slaves. Former bondspeople liberated themselves from chattel slavery and entered into an environment that was plagued by cholera, dysentery, and yellow fever — devastating nineteenth-century illnesses for which the medical profession knew no cure, and from which the poor and the marginalized suffered disproportionately. One of the most often-forgotten facts among the public displays and memorials about the Civil War is that the vast number of soldiers died from disease and sickness, not from combat wounds or battle — in fact, the war became the largest biological crisis of nineteenth-century America.

In their journeys toward freedom, ex-slaves often lacked adequate shelter, food, and clothing. Without the basic necessities to survive, freed slaves stood defenseless when a smallpox epidemic exploded in Washington in 1863 and then spread to the Lower South and Mississippi Valley in 1864 to 1865. A military official in Kentucky described smallpox as a “monster that needed to be checked,” while another federal agent witnessing the “severity and almost malignancy of the epidemic” believed that the virus was on the increase and predicted that “before the coming summer is over it will decimate the colored population.” In the end, the epidemic claimed the lives of over 60,000 former slaves, while other disease outbreaks and fatal epidemics raised the death toll of freedpeople to well over a million — more than a quarter of the newly freed population.

When historians describe casualties of the war, they uncover photos of mostly white enlisted men — bodies strewn across an image of a battlefield or, worst, piled on top of one another in a deep ditch, dead from the effects of a cannonball explosion. What we don’t see is dead freedpeople. The death of white participants in the Civil War is both valued and commemorated: framed as part of a larger saga of war and victory, and then propped up as the heroic embodiment of nationalism on Memorial Day. White people’s death is reenacted annually by thousands of people—who, for a hobby on a holiday weekend, get to play dead.

There was no rebirth for former slaves who died of disease and sickness after the war. There was no chance of them coming back to life in a costume worn by an admirer a century later. Buried under the fallen cities and the new harvests, the South, at its foundation, is a graveyard: a place where black people died in unimaginable numbers not from battle, but from disease and deprivation.

In the recognition of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, let us not forget that freed slaves created Memorial Day. Let us remember that their prayers and observations were not just for the deceased Union soldiers on that first Memorial Day, but also for members of their families and their community who died in a war that was meant to free them.

Jim Downs is the author of Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction(Oxford U.P., May 2012). He is an associate professor of history at Connecticut College and has a MA and PhD from Columbia University.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Lucid Dreaming: A Beginners Guide

by Charlie Morley

The following is excerpted from Lucid Dreaming: A Beginners Guide To Becoming Conscious In Your Dreams, to be published by Hay House Basics in February, 2015.

“What is lucid dreaming?”

Lucid dreaming is the art of becoming conscious within your dreams. A lucid dream is one in which you realize, ‘Aha! I’m dreaming!’ while you’re still asleep. Once you become conscious within a dream, you can interact with and direct it at will, partner-dancing with your unconscious mind.

GMOs Encourage Weight Gain and Obesity, Researchers Discover

By Carolanne Wright

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

Looking around, it’s no secret that Americans are putting on the pounds unlike any other time in history. Sure, we can’t discount sedentary lifestyles, processed foods and outrageous sugar consumption as contributing factors. At the same time, an elephant in the room is often overlooked — one known as genetically modified food. Researches are beginning to connect the dots, realizing that the possibility of GMOs contributing to weight gain is not as far-fetched as once thought.

GMOs, bigger appetites and the fattening of America

A long-term project in Norway investigating the health effects of genetically modified foods has come to some startling conclusions regarding the role that GMOs play in the worldwide obesity epidemic. Over a period of 90 days, test rats were fed either food containing genetically modified corn or feed which did not contain GM corn. The scientists discovered that the rats fed a GM corn diet had bigger appetites and grew fatter than those on the non-GM diet. It was also found that rats fed a diet of fish raised on GM corn had a similar result — increased weight gain.

Pageant mom fed teenage daughter tapeworms

A pageant mother from Florida fed her teenage daughter tapeworms to help her slim down for a competition, a nurse has revealed.

Maricar Cabral-Osori told how she admitted the girl to the ER with severe stomach cramps and initially suspected she was pregnant - something an ultrasound ruled out.

However, the cause of the pain became clear when the nurse later found the teenager screaming over a toilet bowl full of tapeworms, she recalled on a recent episode of Untold Stories of the ER.

A Florida mother fed her daughter tapeworms so she could lose weight for a beauty pageant; pictured are contestants from Miss America Nevada

Ms Cabral-Osori said the girl's mother, 'who turned white', admitted buying tapeworm eggs in Mexico and feeding them to her daughter. The eggs hatched after the girl ingested them.

She said: 'The mom was apologizing to the girl.

'She's like, ''I'm so sorry. You know, I just did it to make you a little skinnier. You needed some help before we went on to the pageant'',' Gawker reported.

Ms Cabrai-Osori said the teenager had passed the tapeworms, some of which were 'very long and trying to get out of the toilet bowl'.

Tapeoworms have been used for nearly 100 years to increase weight-loss, but doctors have warned the practice is extremely dangerous.

Last year Dr Patricia Quinlisk, Medical Director of the Lowa Department of Health, wrote: 'Ingesting tapeworms is extremely risky and can cause a wide range of unstable side effects, including rare deaths.

'Those desiring to lose weight are advised to stick with proven weight loss methods- consuming fewer calories and increasing physical activity.'

Tapeworms attach themselves to the intestinal wall of its host and then absorb nutrients and calories

Certain tapeworms can grow up to 30 feet long and can live within a host for up to 20 years

Most people affected with tapeworms have no symptoms, while others may experience abdominal pain, nausea, bloating, diarrhea, weakness, loss of appetite, weight loss, vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition.

Tapeworms have been marketed as a weight loss remedy for nearly 100 years but doctors warn that ingesting them is extremely dangerous

Pageant Mom Fed Her Teen Tapeworms to Make Her Lose Weight

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Post from David Icke

‘ISIS is waging war on the West and we will oppose it with every breath in our body’: Foreign Secretary says British troops could be sent to Baghdad

Wednesday 20 August 2014

BY DAVID-ICKE

‘The Prime Minister will hold meetings today over the ‘shocking and depraved’ execution of photographer James Foley.

The dramatic development came after the Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the Islamic State was waging war on Britain and the West and the organisation had to be dealt with ‘on that basis’.

He also said the jihadist filmed executing Mr Foley ‘appears to be British’ and revealed the Government believed the video was ‘genuine’.

Mr Hammond said the UK would oppose the Islamic State ‘with every breath in our body’ and could send British troops to Baghdad to train Iraqi forces to fight the ‘evil organisation’.’