WHAT NEXT

OK, here it is, the latest you should…or you will die. I’ve got bad news for everyone. You are going to die no matter what you eat. I’m already off sugar (he, he), have lowered my salt intake and am trying to avoid fat. You know what happens when you do all that. Your food no longer has any taste. Apparently, if you want to have a long life — eat cardboard. I’ve tasted pizza that I am sure is made of cardboard

Sugar Should Be Regulated As Toxin, Researchers Say

A spoonful of sugar might make the medicine go down. But it also makes blood pressure and cholesterol go up, along with your risk for liver failure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Oh boy! Am I in trouble! Between the church, the scientists, the doctors and my friends, there is very little I can do. Read on. My old high school friend sent this to me.

IF I CAUSED THE FOLLOWING, I AM VERY SORRY.

BEGINNING 2012

As we progress through the beginning of 2012, I want to thank you for your educational e-mails over the past year. I am totally screwed up now--- have little chance of recovery. 



I can no longer open a bathroom door without using a paper towel, nor let the waitress put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel. 



I can't sit down on a hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed. 



I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking one's nose. 



Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years. 



I can't touch any woman's handbag for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public toilet. 



I must send my special thanks for the email about rat poo in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. 



ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. 



I can't have a drink in a bar because I fear I'll wake up in a bathtub full of ice with my kidneys gone. 



I can't eat at KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes, feet or feathers. 



I can't use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day. 



Thanks to you I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes. 



Because of your concern, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains. 



I no longer buy fuel without taking someone along to watch the car, so a serial killer doesn't crawl in my back seat when I'm filling up. 



I no longer use Cling Wrap in the microwave because it causes seven different types of cancer. 



And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face, disfiguring me for life. 



I no longer go to the cinema because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS when I sit down. 



I no longer go to shopping centers because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. 



And I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a huge phone bill with calls Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan. 
 


Thanks to you I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big black snake could be lurking under the seat and cause me instant death when it bites my butt. 



And thanks to your great advice I can't ever pick up a dime coin dropped in the car park because it was probably placed there by a sex molester waiting to grab me as I bend over. 



I can't do any gardening because I'm afraid I'll get bitten by the Violin Spider and my hand will fall off. 



If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon, and the fleas from 120 camels will l infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next-door neighbor’s ex mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's best friend's beautician! 



Oh, and by the way...

A German scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mails with their hand on the mouse. 

 Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late. 



P. S. I now keep my toothbrush in the living room, because I was told by e-mail that water splashes over 6 ft. out of the toilet.

THOSE WILD EMOTIONS

I love to see genuine, uncontrollable emotion. I love it in all forms. Uncontrollable laughter. Unbridled enthusiasm. Profound grief without anger, and emotion that wells up in your throat and stops the words.

It’s been a long time since laughter has taken total control. Maybe I have seen too much and heard too much, but I miss that surprise that sends me into laughter than makes my eyes water and nose run (strange mixture). You see unbridled enthusiasm at sports events and you will see it on Super Bowl Sunday. But it is an incredible gift in the eyes of a child when grandpa tells them he is taking them to Disneyland. Grief in its purest form is a tribute to love. The tears flow and cannot be stopped as the loss is so profound. C.S. Lewis expressed it this way, “We hurt so much because we loved so much.” Then there is the emotion that sneaks up on you and catches you by surprise.

If you remember the old telephone commercials produced before cell phones and we were all tied to land lines. When I went off to college mother told me to write often but don’t call unless it was an emergency. Phone calls were too expensive. So, many did not make too many calls and we all tried to avoid the long distance calls, especially if money was tight. Those 30-60 second commercials got me in the tear ducts every time. “He called home.” That’s the right phrase. It was usually a son calling his mother. We are the neglectful ones, rarely the daughters.

I love it when it happens in church. It tells me the speaker feels this very deeply. It has touched his or her heart. It catches them on a level they did not expect and they communicate that response on a level deeper than words can express. That happened to my full loving, happy-go-lucky, exuberant pastor this morning and I heard his heart deeper than ever before.

When I speak I can rarely get though a talk without that happening to me. There are times I wish it didn’t happen. There are times I am embarrassed because I didn’t expect it would happen. It usually comes in connection with a story. For me it has to do with talking about my family.

That is not the only times, of course. Either my tear ducts are getting bigger or I am becoming a big bag of sentiment. When I got home from church and prepared lunch I sat down to eat and watch TV. I turned on pair’s figure skating. The couple they just introduced were third or fourth after the short program and not expected to climb above second. Everything was great as they started and they just got better and better and more perfect as they went. When it was over they were embracing unbridled joy and my tears rejoiced with them. Then when they won I gulped a few times trying to stop the water works. If I counted all the times in a day that my emotions bring me to a tear or two there would be a dozen on more.

Before our pastor spoke I was about to take the offering with a mother and her seven or eight year old son working with her. The pastor acknowledged the “usher in training.” And used it to talk about all of us using our time to step in. He then asked the boy if he wanted to pray for the offering and much to the pastor’s surprise, he said yes. Tears instantly came to my eyes. It was touching and beautiful. He had one very proud mom, and there was a very proud congregation as well.

I got caught with a lump in my throat a few more times in that figure skating program. I even ached with each fall. A few weeks back my granddaughter played in a semi-final soccer match. If they won they advanced to the finals. The teams were tied at the end of regulation time and she had scored both points for her team. There was a shoot out to determine the winner. Five players for each team would take turns kicking. Grace was first. She missed, as did the next nine. The final shot was by the opposing team and she hit the mark. That was a good reason to cry with her. Weep with those who weep.

But here’s the kicker. I was watching NCIS Miami tonight. A routine program, but two potential suspects were twins separated at birth. The victim was their sperm donor dad and both had contact with him. One needed his birth dad for a liver transplant. Both families were at the station and at the end both were put in the same van together for a ride home. I know it was written to make us feel this way, but you could see it in the eyes of the health one. He knew he could save the life of his before unknown brother. They got in the van and are looking at one another and the door closes and the program ends. I cry. It’s s dumb TV program. Nothing is real. It’s pretend and I still cry for the dying boy and the healthy one’s growing love for his brother.

Get a grip. I must have been saving up tears for years because they pour out for the least little thing. It was a TV show I was barely watching. I was trying to read a compelling book at the same time. I barely knew what was happening, but that moment got me. We are emotional beings. I love that about people. I could do without the anger, but its all part of the package that God gave us all. We just have different amounts of each. Anybody want some of my tears?

WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

I was watching Sunday Morning on CBS this morning as I was getting g ready for church. This is my favorite news magazine show. The depth and variety of their stories had great appeal to me.

One story this morning was on the sit in on Wall Street and that is spreading to other cities. There is one currently in Seattle. I was listening to Michael Medvid interview a leader of the movement is in the early stages of their protest. He repeatedly asked the question I wanted answered, what do you want. In a thirty-minute interview that question was never answered.

We learned they wanted to talk. We learned they wanted change. We learned they wanted to communicate. We learned they were sick and tired of the status quo. We learned they wanted an exchange of ideas. That fellow could say nothing is more words than a politician.

I picked up a little more this morning. The banks are gouging the citizens. Corporations got bailed out to the determent of the average person. The haves get richer while the have-nots get poorer. Wall Street, the banks and big corporations have bought the politicians to advance their own greed. The middle class is shrinking. We are returning to the days of the robber barons that got rich on the backs of the poor by not paying a living wage. We learned a lot of what we already know, but I still heard no plan of attack. I still do not know what they want to accomplish. I am not even sure how they want things changed.

I do not disagree with their premise. I still remember the congressman advocating for a raise for his group complaining that he cannot live on $178,000. I know it is likely much more costly to live in DC, but I bet I could do in on half of that and still have a good life. Especially if I got all the freebies they get and will get even when voted out of office. I also remember the congresswoman (who makes $178,000) saying social security recipients do not need any more money. Ha! She believes the government does and gives too much to the people.

That may be true, but it was government’s idea to do take our money and then maybe gives it back to us “when we need it.” It was their idea to get us hooked on the provision and then throw us to the curb. Sounds like drug dealers to me.

To be honest, I don’t believe the government should have ever tried to be the parent of us all. But they started it and we will march in the streets if they try to take our candy away. Maybe what they give us is a perceived favor. I don’t really know. I do know I have not even come close yet to getting back what they took from me. So yes, I see social security as my money — not theirs to loan out to themselves and not pay back.

Reminds me of the parent who promised they would pay for their child’s college education and then gambled it all away convinced they easily win it all back and get even more. I want the government to stop gambling with our money. I want big business to care about the economy and their workers to pay a living wage, provide a quality product at a fair price and reduce their own obscene wages and bonuses.

We are certainly returning to the days of the Vanderbilt’s, Rockefeller’s and Carnegie’s. These “humanitarians” build monuments to themselves with their money while fighting compassionate responses to their employees at every turn. Where is the shared wealth with the little people who keep the business going? Yes, it happens. Yes it is being done. But others are gouging, taking advantage of and mistreating the very people that made their wealth possible.

Does a Microsoft or Apple product really need the to be so expensive? Do they have to charge the price the d0 (I support a free market} what they do for their goods? (Just an example). It is not possible that some of the incredible wealth being made by companies like this could not lead to a reduction in price? The theory is that it is suppose to happen.

I remember the days when we believed we would live in a cashless society. With the advent of debit cards that is nearly possible. Banks invest our money making a profit off our money. They charge the retailer for the privilege of using the charge service and now want to charge us again if we use the very item they almost demanded we use because of the convenience. Go figure.

There is a lot wrong with the financial structures of our country. Maybe sitting on Wall Street will bring about good change. I don’t know. I do know that is you are going to camp out on the street you have better figure out where the restrooms are that they will let you use.