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Visit the insurance blog from A to Z at
http://www.insurancecostfor17yearold.com/
Personal Injury Insurance Claim
Besides botching up your body (and sometimes your love life) what else does the injury mean to you? It means a ton of financial expense's, including repairing your motor vehicle, lost wages, a shock to your life style, a tremendous inconvenience and short or long periods of pain and discomfort - - all of it a direct result of your injuries. Plus, there's a long list of possible medical expenses. For example: Doctor/Chiropractor, Prescription Drug Bills, Ambulance, Emergency Room Care, Hospital or Clinic, Specialist and/or Dentist, Laboratory Fees and Services, Diagnostic Tests, X-Rays and (CT) Scan, Prosthetic Appliances or Surgical Apparatus (Canes & Crutches), Physical Therapy, Registered and/or Practical Nurse Fees, Gauze and Tape, Ace Bandages all of which the insurance company must pay whether they like it or not! Also, Creams, Lotions, Ointments, Balms and Salves, etc. (Should the lady in your life apply any of these to your aching body I'm sorry to tell you this but her labor is not an expense you can claim). YOU MUST BE COMPENSATED BY THE INSURANCE COMPANY FOR ALL OF THE ABOVE: It's true that a very small percentage of motor vehicle accidents cause big, serious injuries but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be paid big, serious bucks! EXAMINATION BY THE INSURANCE COMPANY DOCTOR: Claims Adjuster Henry Hard-Nose of Rock Solid Insurance will usually try to pull a fast one insisting he wants you to be examined by the physician of his choice, the local medical con-man of all time, Dr. Nuttin' Wrong. Beware of such a request. Doctors assigned by the insurance company are notorious for stating, in the report they're paid big bucks to execute, "There is no objective basis", for your complaints. You don't have to agree to be examined by Dr. Nuttin' Wrong. Rock Solid Insurance cannot insist that you submit to their doctor for an examination unless your claim actually becomes a formal court case. So, hold your ground until your attending physician, Ole "Doc" Comfort, has released you. After that it's okay to agree to be examined because by then it's too late! So much time will have passed it will be impossible for Dr. Wrong to minimize the pain, discomfort and suffering your injury has caused you. WHAT TO DO ABOUT YOUR MEDICAL BILLS IF YOU MAKE THE MISTAKE OF OBTAINING LEGAL HELP FROM ATTORNEY I. M. SHARP: Should yours be a case in which there's no question that you're not at fault, make it clear to the Legal Beagle you've hired, I. M. Sharp, Esquire, that you expect his Contingency Fee will not apply to that which he recovers for the damage to your car, your medical bills, and/or your payment for lost wages. You tell him these are damages you would have collected ANYWAY - - whether he was handling the case for you or if you settled it yourself. Don't you dare be foolish enough to hand him a huge percentage of that which you were going to be paid by the insurance company, whether Attorney Sharp handled the case or not. To do so is the height of financial stupidity! YOUR BODILY INJURIES: It's a proven fact that the vast majority of motor vehicle accidents cause minor injuries. While bodily injury pain can be specifically measured the limits of what you can endure cannot. Each of us has a different "pain threshold" - - that is, the point at which we begin to feel physical pain. The amount and quality of pain you feel is not strictly dependent on the bodily injury inflicted. It has a lot to do with your previous experience, how well you remember it, and your ability to understand what caused you that pain, and its consequences, the last time around. Stress and strain magnify physical pain plus personal anxiety will greatly increase it. There are also emotional reactions to the injury. A bodily injury is bound to cause some degree of mental distress. The duration and severity that depends on a number of factors: The type of individual you are, the ultimate consequences of the injury you sustained, and the life stresses or strengths you're experiencing at the time of your injury. (If you can't stand her and she takes a powder you'll handle your pain better if you really dig the chick and she dumped you for your best friend)! When it comes to muscle injuries one thing you must keep in mind is that when one part of the body demands rest (by sending out a pain signal) and - - without your even realizing it - - you help your body by placing a new burden on other muscles. It gets complicated because although those muscles may not have been directly injured in the accident, they can still get buggered up and produce a lot of pain because of their new role. DISCLAIMER: The only purpose of this claim tip is to help people understand the motor vehicle motor vehicle accident claim process. Neither Dan Baldyga nor (name the magazine/newsletter and/or web site) make any guarantee of any kind whatsoever; NOR do they purport to engage in rendering any professional or legal service, NOR to substitute for a lawyer, an insurance adjuster, or claims consultant, or the like. Where such professional help is desired it is the INDIVIDUAL'S RESPONSIBILITY to obtain said services. Dan Baldyga's latest book, AUTO ACCIDENT PERSONAL INJURY INSURANCE CLAIM (How To Evaluate And Settle Your Loss) can be found on the internet at http://www.autoaccidentclaims.com or visit your favorite bookstore. Copyright (c) 2002 by Daniel G. Baldyga. All Rights Reserved About The Author For 30 years Dan Baldyga was a claims adjuster, supervisor, manager and also a trial assistant. He is now retired and spends his time attempting to assist those involved in motor vehicle accident claims so they will not be taken advantage of. dbpaw@attbi.com Visit the insurance blog from A to Z at http://www.insurancecostfor17yearold.com/
How I Learned to Love My Buddha Belly
My journey of acceptance of my body, and my belly.
After years of struggle and angst while viewing fashion magazines, I can finally say with all honesty I love and totally accept my little Buddha belly. It's about as round now as when my son Justin was in it at three months.
I can hide it pretty well, if I must, with girdles and tight panty hose for business meetings, and holding my breath works well in case of emergency. But most of the time, my belly and I have reached a peaceful understanding. It wasn't always that way.
As a teen, the belly was simply not an issue. I was 6' tall by age 14, and had always been long-legged and very thin. I ate anything all through high school and I wore skinny bikinis on the then low-key surfer hangout of South Beach years before it became the โ€œUS Rivieraโ€.
Once in my twenties, in the college years, I had to diet only a little once in a while to stay size 10. I became obsessed with fashion magazines at that age, and loved all the attention I got from strangers asking me if I was a model. I was, after all, very tall, very slim, and chic-looking. I was young and naive, and believed that I needed to look exactly like those Glamour models from every angle if I was ever to attain a perfect life- a House Beautiful home and a GQ husband. I learned about what I thought was the meaning of life in the many pages of the many magazines I loved to read.
I even went so far as to check out a modeling career. I moved to New York after college at age 23, and discovered that I was too old, or I needed my chin made smaller, there was always some reason why I wasn't quite good enough. I wasn't too crushed, since a career in publishing and advertising had much more allure to me.
In 1987 at age 28 I married and immediately became pregnant with my son Justin. I stayed pretty thin during the pregnancy naturally, and after he was born even got a little thinner from nursing him. Things never worked out with his GQ father, we had married after only knowing each other a short time. I knew he looked good to everyone, and eventually he acted on the all the female attention he received, leaving when I was pregnant and never returning. I am certain that my thinness after becoming and unexpected single mother then had some stress attached to it, not to mention my near poverty, which limited how much food we could buy.
Justin was a beautiful Gerber-perfect baby. Everywhere I went people gawked at him telling me how beautiful he was. He was my angel. The gods were merciful to me as a new single Mom, because Justin was such a good baby. He hardly cried, woke up smiling, and was the love and light of my life. While raising him alone was not easy, I would not have chosen any other life but one with Justin in it. I raised him with my maiden name, and tried my best to put the nightmare with his cheating, abusive father behind me.
In my late twenties and early thirties I moved up from a size 10 to a 12. Some 12's were big, and I liked the extra comfort with that. I was busy working on developing my career and raising Justin, and stayed pretty thin from sheer exhaustion from constant activity and a healthy living diet. Not long into my career, my gift of gab paid off and my career as a sales professional began. I had money, and could finally without worry buy lots of food, and even go out to eat, often if I wished. I could treat myself to Godiva chocolates, and I am to this day convinced they are better than sex and men. They never talk back and you never have to clean their pee off the toilet.
At age 34, after being alone for more than five years, I met another โ€œMr. Wonderfulโ€, as my father always called the few men in my life. I was happy and settled into domestic bliss with him in my House Beautiful home, and began cooking even more elaborate meals at home and entertaining friends. I felt so satisfied and complete when the house and meals looked Martha Stewart Living perfect. By age 35, my size 12 was bordering on a 14. My little round Buddha belly, now very tanned, was beginning to show so slightly, but I still thought I looked pretty good as I gardened on the patio each weekend in a bikini while Justin laughed and squirted me with the hose running back and forth from his little kiddy pool. I walked every morning around the island we lived on, getting a little sun and staying tone. I did it because it made me feel good, and Lido beach was a beautiful place to take a walk. The firmness was a side benefit.
My new man did not like the changes in my body, and made his feeling known loud and clear. He apparently needed me in a seriously dysfunctional way to look like a Sports Illustrated model again. If I had known he was like that, he would have never become my husband. He rudely announced that just because I was married to him did not mean I was allowed to become a fat housewife. He purchased a treadmill and placed in it the center of the family room, and asked me to please run on it daily. He announced he would be my trainer, and in addition to my duties of working for him, raising my son, and running the home, I was now going to be on the fitness track and that would be on my schedule each day. He called me from the office when I was working at home asking me so sweetly if I had run yet each day. I placated him verbally, but had made up my mind when the subject came up the very first time that I would never take orders from him, knowing there was nothing major wrong with my body, or the way I looked. The problem was clearly him, and I sadly but quickly realized this marriage was not going to last long.
Things disintegrated from that point, and as the inevitable divorce turned ugly, my weight went up to a solid 14. Living with that man had driven out any joy I had once found in exercising out of me for good, it seemed then. But it had increased my love of chocolate. In addition, he emptied my bank account, he had managed to swindle me out of my ownership and $87,000.00 equity in our home, and got away with stealing more than $30,000.00 worth of my personal property, my antiques, and even my personal papers and journals, which he took just to be mean. In spite of it all, and my new size, all things considered, I looked pretty good.
It took years to settle everything. By the time it finally went to trial, my ex-husband had drained all the cash equity out of my home and sold it, feigning bankruptcy. Meanwhile, he had opened a new company in the same industry in his new girlfriend's name, the one he dated while married to me, a three times divorced ex-daycare center worker now the president of an advertising agency-thanks to him.
It gave me great satisfaction to strut into court a tall, blonde, happy size 14 almost 16, with big boobs. My bra size had increased from a 36C to a 36D with my weight gain. I smiled to myself in court as I thought of his new girlfriend enjoying his โ€œpersonal trainingโ€.
My lawyer was awe-struck when my ex husband was legally allowed to get away with taking my money. I have struggled with grief and acceptance of the loss for years, while still trying to create some kind of happy life with my son. I still have occasional nightmares about the ordeal. Comfort became a big issue for me during that time, so I purchased my first pair of Liz Claiborne size 16 jeans, big and loose, heaven to wear.
I have been experiencing a growing, peaceful kind of self-love and acceptance since reaching age 40, and I am grateful for it. I lose weight from activity, not from a self-forced deprivation based on what the media with its fashion models, television actresses, and movie stars send me the message I should be if I want to be โ€œbeautifulโ€. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks they must eat a little lettuce, boiled chicken, and no carbs for lunch to be acceptable to the world. I ride my bike with my son because we like to, not for a cardio benefit. I canoe on the lake with my sweetheart for fun and a little adventure, not for my upper arms. I walk with my little friend, our Maltese dog because it is enjoyable, especially for him.
The woman I am today can flip through a fashion magazine and rather than feel the urge to hire a personal trainer, feels pity for women who think they need to. No one person can ever attain the perfection presented in those magazines without becoming anorexic, overly exhausted, or just plain miserable. Regular folks don't have cash for personal trainers, tons of plastic surgery, and daily facials and massages. I know I do my best to be my personal best, with the busy life I live. That's good enough for me. Gone forever is the unrealistic idea that my home, my man and my body should be as perfect as the ones in the media. Good riddance to that concept.
Today at 43 I am a happy size 16 and a DD cup, and I love my Buddha belly. I suds it up in the shower and lovingly moisturize it daily. I was lucky enough to meet and love a man with one of his own. I wouldn't trade kissing his soft furry belly for all the treadmills in Bally's. We have no desire to marry, and that works for us both. The dream of that perfect married life depicted in the magazines I built it on is over for me now, and I am at peace with the happiness I find in each day of my life, as it is, for real. He has never complained about my little Buddha belly, and neither of us is inclined to slow down our love for homemade brownies, marshmallow treats, and fat-free ice cream sandwiches. We both work hard, and enjoy our meals and downtime together. I am not gaining more weight, in fact when I get really busy my size 14 clothes fit again. Either way, I am feeling fine and looking good! My sweetheart collected a number of Buddha statues when he traveled to Thailand a few years ago. They are all over our house. I love having them around, because they are always smiling, like me, belly and all.
After years of struggle and angst while viewing fashion magazines, I can finally say with all honesty I love and totally accept my little Buddha belly. It's about as round now as when my son Justin was in it at three months.
I can hide it pretty well, if I must, with girdles and tight panty hose for business meetings, and holding my breath works well in case of emergency. But most of the time, my belly and I have reached a peaceful understanding. It wasn't always that way.
As a teen, the belly was simply not an issue. I was 6' tall by age 14, and had always been long-legged and very thin. I ate anything all through high school and I wore skinny bikinis on the then low-key surfer hangout of South Beach years before it became the โ€œUS Rivieraโ€.
Once in my twenties, in the college years, I had to diet only a little once in a while to stay size 10. I became obsessed with fashion magazines at that age, and loved all the attention I got from strangers asking me if I was a model. I was, after all, very tall, very slim, and chic-looking. I was young and naive, and believed that I needed to look exactly like those Glamour models from every angle if I was ever to attain a perfect life- a House Beautiful home and a GQ husband. I learned about what I thought was the meaning of life in the many pages of the many magazines I loved to read.
I even went so far as to check out a modeling career. I moved to New York after college at age 23, and discovered that I was too old, or I needed my chin made smaller, there was always some reason why I wasn't quite good enough. I wasn't too crushed, since a career in publishing and advertising had much more allure to me.
In 1987 at age 28 I married and immediately became pregnant with my son Justin. I stayed pretty thin during the pregnancy naturally, and after he was born even got a little thinner from nursing him. Things never worked out with his GQ father, we had married after only knowing each other a short time. I knew he looked good to everyone, and eventually he acted on the all the female attention he received, leaving when I was pregnant and never returning. I am certain that my thinness after becoming and unexpected single mother then had some stress attached to it, not to mention my near poverty, which limited how much food we could buy.
Justin was a beautiful Gerber-perfect baby. Everywhere I went people gawked at him telling me how beautiful he was. He was my angel. The gods were merciful to me as a new single Mom, because Justin was such a good baby. He hardly cried, woke up smiling, and was the love and light of my life. While raising him alone was not easy, I would not have chosen any other life but one with Justin in it. I raised him with my maiden name, and tried my best to put the nightmare with his cheating, abusive father behind me.
In my late twenties and early thirties I moved up from a size 10 to a 12. Some 12's were big, and I liked the extra comfort with that. I was busy working on developing my career and raising Justin, and stayed pretty thin from sheer exhaustion from constant activity and a healthy living diet. Not long into my career, my gift of gab paid off and my career as a sales professional began. I had money, and could finally without worry buy lots of food, and even go out to eat, often if I wished. I could treat myself to Godiva chocolates, and I am to this day convinced they are better than sex and men. They never talk back and you never have to clean their pee off the toilet.
At age 34, after being alone for more than five years, I met another โ€œMr. Wonderfulโ€, as my father always called the few men in my life. I was happy and settled into domestic bliss with him in my House Beautiful home, and began cooking even more elaborate meals at home and entertaining friends. I felt so satisfied and complete when the house and meals looked Martha Stewart Living perfect. By age 35, my size 12 was bordering on a 14. My little round Buddha belly, now very tanned, was beginning to show so slightly, but I still thought I looked pretty good as I gardened on the patio each weekend in a bikini while Justin laughed and squirted me with the hose running back and forth from his little kiddy pool. I walked every morning around the island we lived on, getting a little sun and staying tone. I did it because it made me feel good, and Lido beach was a beautiful place to take a walk. The firmness was a side benefit.
My new man did not like the changes in my body, and made his feeling known loud and clear. He apparently needed me in a seriously dysfunctional way to look like a Sports Illustrated model again. If I had known he was like that, he would have never become my husband. He rudely announced that just because I was married to him did not mean I was allowed to become a fat housewife. He purchased a treadmill and placed in it the center of the family room, and asked me to please run on it daily. He announced he would be my trainer, and in addition to my duties of working for him, raising my son, and running the home, I was now going to be on the fitness track and that would be on my schedule each day. He called me from the office when I was working at home asking me so sweetly if I had run yet each day. I placated him verbally, but had made up my mind when the subject came up the very first time that I would never take orders from him, knowing there was nothing major wrong with my body, or the way I looked. The problem was clearly him, and I sadly but quickly realized this marriage was not going to last long.
Things disintegrated from that point, and as the inevitable divorce turned ugly, my weight went up to a solid 14. Living with that man had driven out any joy I had once found in exercising out of me for good, it seemed then. But it had increased my love of chocolate. In addition, he emptied my bank account, he had managed to swindle me out of my ownership and $87,000.00 equity in our home, and got away with stealing more than $30,000.00 worth of my personal property, my antiques, and even my personal papers and journals, which he took just to be mean. In spite of it all, and my new size, all things considered, I looked pretty good.
It took years to settle everything. By the time it finally went to trial, my ex-husband had drained all the cash equity out of my home and sold it, feigning bankruptcy. Meanwhile, he had opened a new company in the same industry in his new girlfriend's name, the one he dated while married to me, a three times divorced ex-daycare center worker now the president of an advertising agency-thanks to him.
It gave me great satisfaction to strut into court a tall, blonde, happy size 14 almost 16, with big boobs. My bra size had increased from a 36C to a 36D with my weight gain. I smiled to myself in court as I thought of his new girlfriend enjoying his โ€œpersonal trainingโ€.
My lawyer was awe-struck when my ex husband was legally allowed to get away with taking my money. I have struggled with grief and acceptance of the loss for years, while still trying to create some kind of happy life with my son. I still have occasional nightmares about the ordeal. Comfort became a big issue for me during that time, so I purchased my first pair of Liz Claiborne size 16 jeans, big and loose, heaven to wear.
I have been experiencing a growing, peaceful kind of self-love and acceptance since reaching age 40, and I am grateful for it. I lose weight from activity, not from a self-forced deprivation based on what the media with its fashion models, television actresses, and movie stars send me the message I should be if I want to be โ€œbeautifulโ€. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks they must eat a little lettuce, boiled chicken, and no carbs for lunch to be acceptable to the world. I ride my bike with my son because we like to, not for a cardio benefit. I canoe on the lake with my sweetheart for fun and a little adventure, not for my upper arms. I walk with my little friend, our Maltese dog because it is enjoyable, especially for him.
The woman I am today can flip through a fashion magazine and rather than feel the urge to hire a personal trainer, feels pity for women who think they need to. No one person can ever attain the perfection presented in those magazines without becoming anorexic, overly exhausted, or just plain miserable. Regular folks don't have cash for personal trainers, tons of plastic surgery, and daily facials and massages. I know I do my best to be my personal best, with the busy life I live. That's good enough for me. Gone forever is the unrealistic idea that my home, my man and my body should be as perfect as the ones in the media. Good riddance to that concept.
Today at 43 I am a happy size 16 and a DD cup, and I love my Buddha belly. I suds it up in the shower and lovingly moisturize it daily. I was lucky enough to meet and love a man with one of his own. I wouldn't trade kissing his soft furry belly for all the treadmills in Bally's. We have no desire to marry, and that works for us both. The dream of that perfect married life depicted in the magazines I built it on is over for me now, and I am at peace with the happiness I find in each day of my life, as it is, for real. He has never complained about my little Buddha belly, and neither of us is inclined to slow down our love for homemade brownies, marshmallow treats, and fat-free ice cream sandwiches. We both work hard, and enjoy our meals and downtime together. I am not gaining more weight, in fact when I get really busy my size 14 clothes fit again. Either way, I am feeling fine and looking good! My sweetheart collected a number of Buddha statues when he traveled to Thailand a few years ago. They are all over our house. I love having them around, because they are always smiling, like me, belly and all.
From Boring to Bliss: Refreshing Your Low-Carb Menu
September 10, 2004 -- Before there were low-carb specialty stores and low-carb convenience foods, there were low-carbers -- millions of them. And despite reported declines in low-carb convenience food sales, recent surveys by USA Today and the Natural Marketing Institute confirm that millions of Americans -- as many as 24 million, by some estimates -- are still low-carbing. Another estimated 70 million are consciously limiting their carb intake.
What these carb-counters are buying more of is whole foods: cheese, beef, poultry, eggs, produce -- the foods originally recommended by medical experts promoting the low-carb way of eating. In fact, AC Nielsen reports that, in 2003, sales of perishable goods rose significantly across the board. According to an August trend report from market research firm Information Research, Inc. (IRI), sales of products naturally low in carbs -- including eggs, bacon, light beers and others -- have, as a group, reached over $4 billion in sales during the past year -- up nearly 6% versus a year ago. Further, IRI reports that early players in low-carb -- like Atkins, Keto and CarboRite, just to name a few -- are still growing strong, with sales up over 181% versus a year ago.
Even with the wide variety of healthful items available at the typical grocery store, keeping the carb-controlled menu interesting can be a challenge "If you've gotten to the point where your meals seem repetitive or you feel like you've had enough steak to last a lifetime, you're really missing out," says Vanessa Sands, editor-in-chief of LowCarb Energy magazine. "Low-carbing is not about restriction and deprivation, but about enjoying the really delicious, really satisfying food options available. Those who get the whole carb-cutting thing enjoy food as it was meant to be enjoyed: whole, full of flavor and as close to its natural state as possible."
Sands goes on to say that low-carb does not mean no carb, but instead emphasizes removing refined and processed carbohydrates with little or no nutritive value from the diet in favor of "good carbs" -- whole grains, vegetables, nuts, some fruits high in nutrients and fiber. "Every bite we choose to take counts. Every food choice we make affects our health. Certainly, there's room for ready-made, low-carb treats -- but we need to understand the difference between โ€˜needs' and โ€˜wants.' And that means first eating what our bodies need."
Following such a health-focused eating regimen does not doom a person to culinary monotony, according to Sands. "Low-carbing is a lifestyle -- it works best for people not just when they get on the scale or get the results of their physicals -- but in day-to-day eating, in the everyday rituals and menus that become part of our lives," says Sands. "And one of LowCarb Energy's missions is to provide strategies for keeping that philosophy interesting to the palate. For example, we often nudge our readers toward using ingredients they haven't tried before โ€" maybe an exotic spice or creamy French cheese โ€" to really transform their meals. It's all about the food: how to plan menus, what to buy, where to find it, and how to prepare, present and savor good-for-you meals."
Providing accurate and timely information from health experts is another of LowCarb Energy's primary goals. By maintaining stringent editorial standards in all categories -- from nutrition features and wellness stories to weight loss advice and motivational articles -- the magazine strives to be the ultimate guide for women and men participating in one of the world's most popular and healthful lifestyles.
"We want to show our readers how they can make informed eating decisions, lose weight, get healthy and enjoy the process with tasty, nutritious low-carb meals," Sands says. "And the energy in our name spills over into our Website, when readers share what they've learned or come up with ideas of their own to share in our forums."
Providing the expertise and input behind that energy is a highly-qualified and diverse panel of medical and low-carb experts. Beginning with the magazine's holiday issue, on newsstands November 4, Atkins' medical director, Dr. Stuart Trager joins the expert advisory panel, along with Colette Heimowitz, who is the vice president of education and research for Atkins Health and Medical Information Services.
Below are the key members of LowCarb Energy's expert advisory panel and their qualifications:
-- Stuart Lawrence Trager, M.D., serves as the medical director for Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. (ANI) and chairperson of the Atkins Physicians Council (APC). Dr. Trager also operates an active orthopedic practice at Pennsylvania Hospital and founded Elite Health & Wellness in Philadelphia, which provides comprehensive medical evaluations and treatment protocols to improve nutrition, heighten cardiovascular fitness and decrease lifestyle risk factors.
-- Colette Heimowitz, M.Sc. is vice president of education and research for Atkins Health & Medical Information Services and is a member of the Atkins Nutritionals New Product Development Committee.
-- Fred Pescatore, M.D., MPH is a traditionally trained physician and the author of four books on nutritional medicine and weight management, including the best-selling The Hamptons Diet. His New York City practice focuses on nutritional medicine. Dr. Pescatore served as associate medical director at the Atkins Center for five years.
-- Frederic J. Vagnini, M.D., co-author of The Carbohydrate Addict's Healthy Heart and author of Healthy Heart Plan, specializes in clinical nutrition, preventive medicine and cardiovascular disease. He is medical director of Dr. V's Pulse Anti-Aging Center and executive medical director for the Heart, Diabetes and Weight Loss Centers of New York (www.doctorV.net).
-- Debbie Judd, R.N. works with Drs. Michael R. and Mary Dan Eades, authors of Protein Power, the Protein Power LifePlan, the 30-Day Low Carb Diet Solution and the Low Carb Comfort Foods Cookbook.
-- Lee Labrada, a former Mr. Universe, owns Labrada Nutrition, through which he introduced his own line of sports nutrition products.
-- Philip L. Goglia, founder of Performance Fitness Concepts, is a champion bodybuilder and the author of Turn Up the Heat: Unlock the Fat Burning Power of Your Metabolism.
-- Casey and Lisa Kammel own Executive Fitness, a private training studio. A triathlete and former bodybuilder, Casey overcame serious injury and is now a motivational speaker and certified personal trainer. Lisa Kammel is a certified personal trainer and triathlete (www.executivefitness.com).
-- Chef Karen Barnaby, executive chef of the Fish House in Vancouver, British Columbia, is author of The Low-Carb Gourmet and the cookbooks Pacific Passions, Screamingly Good Food and The Passionate Cook.
-- Chef Evan Lewis is trained in nutrition, teaches at Laguna Culinary Arts, is a gourmet personal chef and owns Evan's Supper Club, an upscale cooking class.
-- Nancy Moshier, R.N. is LowCarb Energy's food editor, a registered nurse and author of Eat Yourself Thin Like I Did: Quick and Easy Low Carb Cookbook and Eat Yourself Thin With Fabulous Desserts.
-- Chef Gregory E. Pryor, CEC is a former associate and consulting executive chef for Dr. Robert Atkins. He is the author of A Complete Low Carb Lifestyle and will host The Low Carb Cafรฉ, a 30-minute cooking show, in 2005.
-- Regina Schumann, CEO of the Carbohydrate Awareness Council, is a business and information technology strategist.
ABOUT LOWCARB ENERGY MAGAZINE
LowCarb Energy, a 128-page magazine published by Coincide Publishing of Scottsdale, Arizona, features a minimum of 50 low-carb recipes in each issue, offering menu ideas for a variety of events, diets and budgets. The magazine is available nationwide at retailers Wal-Mart, Eckerd, Rite Aid, Walgreens and others; grocery store chains including Albertsons, Jewel, Kroger, Publix, Ralphs and Winn-Dixie; health food stores GNC, Vitamin World, Whole Foods, and Wild Oats; and bookstores such as Borders, Books-a-Million and Barnes & Noble. Drawing on advice from health professionals, fitness gurus, researchers, nutritionists, chefs and other experts, readers will find articles on everything from low-carbing while traveling to smart exercise ideas. Find out more online at www.LowCarbEnergy.com.
ABOUT COINCIDE PUBLISHING
Coincide Publishing, LLC, is a dynamic publishing company specializing in the production of consumer magazines. Under the leadership of experienced management, Coincide draws upon the combined print, editorial, publishing and magazine circulation experience of more than 85 years. Their newest magazine, Cooking Smart, will be debuting in January 2005. Find out more about this title at http://CookingSmartMagazine.com .
CONTACT: Betsy Gartrell-Judd, Executive Editor
Coincide Publishing, LLC
15111 North Hayden Road, PMB 304
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Email: feedback@coincide.com
Phone: (920) 687-8614
http://CoincidePublishing.com
http://LowCarbEnergy.com
What these carb-counters are buying more of is whole foods: cheese, beef, poultry, eggs, produce -- the foods originally recommended by medical experts promoting the low-carb way of eating. In fact, AC Nielsen reports that, in 2003, sales of perishable goods rose significantly across the board. According to an August trend report from market research firm Information Research, Inc. (IRI), sales of products naturally low in carbs -- including eggs, bacon, light beers and others -- have, as a group, reached over $4 billion in sales during the past year -- up nearly 6% versus a year ago. Further, IRI reports that early players in low-carb -- like Atkins, Keto and CarboRite, just to name a few -- are still growing strong, with sales up over 181% versus a year ago.
Even with the wide variety of healthful items available at the typical grocery store, keeping the carb-controlled menu interesting can be a challenge "If you've gotten to the point where your meals seem repetitive or you feel like you've had enough steak to last a lifetime, you're really missing out," says Vanessa Sands, editor-in-chief of LowCarb Energy magazine. "Low-carbing is not about restriction and deprivation, but about enjoying the really delicious, really satisfying food options available. Those who get the whole carb-cutting thing enjoy food as it was meant to be enjoyed: whole, full of flavor and as close to its natural state as possible."
Sands goes on to say that low-carb does not mean no carb, but instead emphasizes removing refined and processed carbohydrates with little or no nutritive value from the diet in favor of "good carbs" -- whole grains, vegetables, nuts, some fruits high in nutrients and fiber. "Every bite we choose to take counts. Every food choice we make affects our health. Certainly, there's room for ready-made, low-carb treats -- but we need to understand the difference between โ€˜needs' and โ€˜wants.' And that means first eating what our bodies need."
Following such a health-focused eating regimen does not doom a person to culinary monotony, according to Sands. "Low-carbing is a lifestyle -- it works best for people not just when they get on the scale or get the results of their physicals -- but in day-to-day eating, in the everyday rituals and menus that become part of our lives," says Sands. "And one of LowCarb Energy's missions is to provide strategies for keeping that philosophy interesting to the palate. For example, we often nudge our readers toward using ingredients they haven't tried before โ€" maybe an exotic spice or creamy French cheese โ€" to really transform their meals. It's all about the food: how to plan menus, what to buy, where to find it, and how to prepare, present and savor good-for-you meals."
Providing accurate and timely information from health experts is another of LowCarb Energy's primary goals. By maintaining stringent editorial standards in all categories -- from nutrition features and wellness stories to weight loss advice and motivational articles -- the magazine strives to be the ultimate guide for women and men participating in one of the world's most popular and healthful lifestyles.
"We want to show our readers how they can make informed eating decisions, lose weight, get healthy and enjoy the process with tasty, nutritious low-carb meals," Sands says. "And the energy in our name spills over into our Website, when readers share what they've learned or come up with ideas of their own to share in our forums."
Providing the expertise and input behind that energy is a highly-qualified and diverse panel of medical and low-carb experts. Beginning with the magazine's holiday issue, on newsstands November 4, Atkins' medical director, Dr. Stuart Trager joins the expert advisory panel, along with Colette Heimowitz, who is the vice president of education and research for Atkins Health and Medical Information Services.
Below are the key members of LowCarb Energy's expert advisory panel and their qualifications:
-- Stuart Lawrence Trager, M.D., serves as the medical director for Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. (ANI) and chairperson of the Atkins Physicians Council (APC). Dr. Trager also operates an active orthopedic practice at Pennsylvania Hospital and founded Elite Health & Wellness in Philadelphia, which provides comprehensive medical evaluations and treatment protocols to improve nutrition, heighten cardiovascular fitness and decrease lifestyle risk factors.
-- Colette Heimowitz, M.Sc. is vice president of education and research for Atkins Health & Medical Information Services and is a member of the Atkins Nutritionals New Product Development Committee.
-- Fred Pescatore, M.D., MPH is a traditionally trained physician and the author of four books on nutritional medicine and weight management, including the best-selling The Hamptons Diet. His New York City practice focuses on nutritional medicine. Dr. Pescatore served as associate medical director at the Atkins Center for five years.
-- Frederic J. Vagnini, M.D., co-author of The Carbohydrate Addict's Healthy Heart and author of Healthy Heart Plan, specializes in clinical nutrition, preventive medicine and cardiovascular disease. He is medical director of Dr. V's Pulse Anti-Aging Center and executive medical director for the Heart, Diabetes and Weight Loss Centers of New York (www.doctorV.net).
-- Debbie Judd, R.N. works with Drs. Michael R. and Mary Dan Eades, authors of Protein Power, the Protein Power LifePlan, the 30-Day Low Carb Diet Solution and the Low Carb Comfort Foods Cookbook.
-- Lee Labrada, a former Mr. Universe, owns Labrada Nutrition, through which he introduced his own line of sports nutrition products.
-- Philip L. Goglia, founder of Performance Fitness Concepts, is a champion bodybuilder and the author of Turn Up the Heat: Unlock the Fat Burning Power of Your Metabolism.
-- Casey and Lisa Kammel own Executive Fitness, a private training studio. A triathlete and former bodybuilder, Casey overcame serious injury and is now a motivational speaker and certified personal trainer. Lisa Kammel is a certified personal trainer and triathlete (www.executivefitness.com).
-- Chef Karen Barnaby, executive chef of the Fish House in Vancouver, British Columbia, is author of The Low-Carb Gourmet and the cookbooks Pacific Passions, Screamingly Good Food and The Passionate Cook.
-- Chef Evan Lewis is trained in nutrition, teaches at Laguna Culinary Arts, is a gourmet personal chef and owns Evan's Supper Club, an upscale cooking class.
-- Nancy Moshier, R.N. is LowCarb Energy's food editor, a registered nurse and author of Eat Yourself Thin Like I Did: Quick and Easy Low Carb Cookbook and Eat Yourself Thin With Fabulous Desserts.
-- Chef Gregory E. Pryor, CEC is a former associate and consulting executive chef for Dr. Robert Atkins. He is the author of A Complete Low Carb Lifestyle and will host The Low Carb Cafรฉ, a 30-minute cooking show, in 2005.
-- Regina Schumann, CEO of the Carbohydrate Awareness Council, is a business and information technology strategist.
ABOUT LOWCARB ENERGY MAGAZINE
LowCarb Energy, a 128-page magazine published by Coincide Publishing of Scottsdale, Arizona, features a minimum of 50 low-carb recipes in each issue, offering menu ideas for a variety of events, diets and budgets. The magazine is available nationwide at retailers Wal-Mart, Eckerd, Rite Aid, Walgreens and others; grocery store chains including Albertsons, Jewel, Kroger, Publix, Ralphs and Winn-Dixie; health food stores GNC, Vitamin World, Whole Foods, and Wild Oats; and bookstores such as Borders, Books-a-Million and Barnes & Noble. Drawing on advice from health professionals, fitness gurus, researchers, nutritionists, chefs and other experts, readers will find articles on everything from low-carbing while traveling to smart exercise ideas. Find out more online at www.LowCarbEnergy.com.
ABOUT COINCIDE PUBLISHING
Coincide Publishing, LLC, is a dynamic publishing company specializing in the production of consumer magazines. Under the leadership of experienced management, Coincide draws upon the combined print, editorial, publishing and magazine circulation experience of more than 85 years. Their newest magazine, Cooking Smart, will be debuting in January 2005. Find out more about this title at http://CookingSmartMagazine.com .
CONTACT: Betsy Gartrell-Judd, Executive Editor
Coincide Publishing, LLC
15111 North Hayden Road, PMB 304
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
Email: feedback@coincide.com
Phone: (920) 687-8614
http://CoincidePublishing.com
http://LowCarbEnergy.com
Traveling With a Baby on a Plane
On the plane
Babies under two years still travel free on the lap, though there are rumors that this perk may soon be coming to an end. Most airlines charge a hefty service fee ($100 on United) for overseas flights for the same privilege, of traveling with babies. Before you even consider buying that extra seat until they are over two, remember that the baby will probably be on your lap anyway during the entire flights. So, unless you need an expensive place to keep your unread newspaper and magazines, take advantage of this free ride for as long as possible, while traveling with your baby. Don't forget the sippee cup, bottle and binkey. If you do, the plane ride will be a descent into hell, because little ears often can not handle take-offs and landings without sucking on something. If mom is there and still nursing, you're in luck; you can read the paper in peace. If not, you'll be playing hot potato with the baby for at least a half hour up and a half hour down. We lost the sippee cup one time on the way to the airport and were able to get one at Travelers Aid at the last minute.
One gadget (and we love gadgets) you may want to consider sticking at the bottom of the diaper bag, while traveling with babies, is a water bottle adapter. This small piece of plastic allows you to use a soda or water bottle as a baby bottle and includes an extra nipple. At $.99 on eBay, its value to you, while traveling with babies, as an always prepared dad, would be immeasurable.
While often harried, I've always found airline service staff to be very good at warming bottles or fetching hot water for formula, when you're traveling with your baby. Don't expect them to wait on you, but they can be very helpful.
A word to the wise on diapers for the plane: carry many extras while traveling with babies. Planes get delayed or cancelled, and some end up sitting on the tarmac for hours. Don't become a horror story of a panicked parent down to the last diaper with a diarrhetic baby leaking all over you and your neighbors. We have asked strangers to borrow a diaper when really stuck, but wouldn't want to start bartering for one in a closed market environment where demand might really far exceed supply.
Dining out
We've eaten at dozens of great restaurants over the years, sometimes with a dozing child on our lap. However, the biggest caveat here is that kids will behave in a strange restaurant the same way they will behave at home. If you know your child will never sit through a dinner at home, don't do as we do. We've never been afraid to finish up a dinner quickly if the kids have really had enough, but we've also never shied away from having a full meal. Go to eat as early as possible, while the staff is fresh and accommodating. We've always found wait staff to be super-understanding and welcoming to our kids.
A day with baby
Finally, you're now traveling with a third person who has input into the activities of the day. Luckily, babies enjoy many things parents do: a walk through the park, a trip to a museum, or just people-watching from the luxury of their stroller. And, unlike us, they can just close their eyes and nod off whenever they get bored or tired. If you time it right, during those moments, you and your wife might even have a little bit of time to yourself to muse about life before children and all the freedom you had.
Babies under two years still travel free on the lap, though there are rumors that this perk may soon be coming to an end. Most airlines charge a hefty service fee ($100 on United) for overseas flights for the same privilege, of traveling with babies. Before you even consider buying that extra seat until they are over two, remember that the baby will probably be on your lap anyway during the entire flights. So, unless you need an expensive place to keep your unread newspaper and magazines, take advantage of this free ride for as long as possible, while traveling with your baby. Don't forget the sippee cup, bottle and binkey. If you do, the plane ride will be a descent into hell, because little ears often can not handle take-offs and landings without sucking on something. If mom is there and still nursing, you're in luck; you can read the paper in peace. If not, you'll be playing hot potato with the baby for at least a half hour up and a half hour down. We lost the sippee cup one time on the way to the airport and were able to get one at Travelers Aid at the last minute.
One gadget (and we love gadgets) you may want to consider sticking at the bottom of the diaper bag, while traveling with babies, is a water bottle adapter. This small piece of plastic allows you to use a soda or water bottle as a baby bottle and includes an extra nipple. At $.99 on eBay, its value to you, while traveling with babies, as an always prepared dad, would be immeasurable.
While often harried, I've always found airline service staff to be very good at warming bottles or fetching hot water for formula, when you're traveling with your baby. Don't expect them to wait on you, but they can be very helpful.
A word to the wise on diapers for the plane: carry many extras while traveling with babies. Planes get delayed or cancelled, and some end up sitting on the tarmac for hours. Don't become a horror story of a panicked parent down to the last diaper with a diarrhetic baby leaking all over you and your neighbors. We have asked strangers to borrow a diaper when really stuck, but wouldn't want to start bartering for one in a closed market environment where demand might really far exceed supply.
Dining out
We've eaten at dozens of great restaurants over the years, sometimes with a dozing child on our lap. However, the biggest caveat here is that kids will behave in a strange restaurant the same way they will behave at home. If you know your child will never sit through a dinner at home, don't do as we do. We've never been afraid to finish up a dinner quickly if the kids have really had enough, but we've also never shied away from having a full meal. Go to eat as early as possible, while the staff is fresh and accommodating. We've always found wait staff to be super-understanding and welcoming to our kids.
A day with baby
Finally, you're now traveling with a third person who has input into the activities of the day. Luckily, babies enjoy many things parents do: a walk through the park, a trip to a museum, or just people-watching from the luxury of their stroller. And, unlike us, they can just close their eyes and nod off whenever they get bored or tired. If you time it right, during those moments, you and your wife might even have a little bit of time to yourself to muse about life before children and all the freedom you had.
Paul Banas was looking for a business idea that would allow him the flexibility to spend time with his family. Paul Banas is a founder of http://www.greatdad.com - a leading source of experience, recommendations, inspiration and advice for dads - delivered from the male perspective.
Nurse Lazarus Runs a Neat Newsworthy Net Business
"Nurse Lazarus" Runs a Neat Newsworthy Net Business
by Nancy R. Fenn
The emphasis today is on working from home with an internet business. We're talking today with Margaret Loris, the Sunhealer. Margaret has an international healing practice based out of Chicago. She markets and promotes her business on the internet and has for years. A successful entrepreneur and gifted healer, Loris travels around the world presenting workshops with the latest healing techniques, explaining to people how they can change their basic DNA programming to bring more success and happiness into their lives.
Fenn: Margaret, in a day and age when so many people would like to have an international business that is successful on the internet, how did you get started?
Loris: I've been a healer from the day I was born. Ever since I was a child I would automatically know things that would help and heal people. When I reached six years of age, I loved God so much that I wanted to be a priest and give everyone Holy Communion.
Fenn: You didn't think about becoming a nun? You must have a clear relationship with your own power.
Loris: Yes, I'm a woman who's not afraid of power. I use my power to help others.
Fenn: Did you find support in your childhood environment for your healing gifts?
Loris: I could see auras and thought that everyone else could too. I never really paid much attention to it, so nobody else made a big deal of it either. Later when I began studying healing techniques, that's when everything finally started to fit together and I could use my inner talents more beneficially.
Fenn: How did you start your healing practice?
Loris: I didn't start it right away. I was a registered nurse specializing in transplants for about twenty one years. I worked in Florida at that time. The work was demanding and satisfying in a way, I mean sometimes we could save someone's life. But I couldn't help thinking, what if these people could have healed themselves? What if they didn't have to go to this extreme in the surgery room?
Fenn: You sound like a healer all right. Did the doctors and other nurses know your powers?
Loris: Yes, they certainly did. I remember as an operating room nurse in a trauma hospital, a neurosurgeon called me Nurse Lazarus, because he said I could bring back the dead. Others would comment on how easily their surgeries went and quickly their patients healed when I worked with them. This is when I knew for sure I was a healer. All my years as an operating nurse plus my healing studies have all given me a complete view of all types and methods of healing techniques. I saw an article this week about God and healing on a national magazine. The world is getting ready for breakthroughs in healing and we're ready, too!
Fenn: What other healing techniques and methods did you study?
Loris: I graduated from Barbara Brennan's four-year training program in 1995.
Fenn: For readers who don't know Barbara Brennan, can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: It's a school that teaches you how to clean, balance, repair, and center a person's energy field.
Fenn: I know that must have been a very fulfilling experience. What else did you train in?
Loris: I'm certified in the Australian Living Flower Essences Academy and am trained as a Rapid Eye Technician.
Fenn: Tell us more!
Loris: Rapid Eye Technology is a spiritual therapy that relieves emotional stress. Flower essences are natural health elixirs derived from flowers. Australia uses flower essences in their hospitals and write about their effects in the nursing journals.
Fenn: I can see that gives you a variety of healing methods to work with.
Loris: I wanted to have a full range of abilities, so I also received a Master's Degree in the Science of Esoteric Psychology.
Fenn: What's that?
Loris: It's healing through contact with your soul and becoming soul infused.
Fenn: Wow. And did you say you are ordained in Kabalah course?
Loris: Yes, I'm very proud of my ordination with the third degree of Karin Kabalah. I was ordained at Saint Thomas Christian Church in Atlanta. This gives me the ability to give Kabalistic healings and anoint the dying. I can enter hospitals now as a healing minister and perform healings there as well.
Fenn: It sounds like you've been all over the world. Many readers would like to build a healing practice like this and have the independence to work for themselves. Who are some of your mentors, people you admire in the healing arts?
Loris: Vianna Stibal, of course! I spend most of my time now teaching people Vianna's DNA healing techniques. As I was saying, I hoped one day to see people heal themselves before they have serious surgeries. Vianna cured herself of cancer using the methods I now teach others.
Fenn: Why is it called DNA?
Loris: Because this technique permits us to go to the original genetic blueprint, our DNA, and reconstruct it. We remove negative energies and patterning. We replace it with positive healing energy.
Fenn: Can anyone learn this?
Loris: Oh, yes. I teach everyone from advanced healers to ordinary people who are ready to take that next step. I think that's what the Aquarian Age is all about โ€ฆ we have the power to heal ourselves and the time is right now! It is also something someone could use to start their own healing practice, just like I have. In no time, you'll be travelling all over the world, too!
Fenn: You built up a practice that is worldwide. Can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: Yes, I'd be glad to. When you have a program that really works, word gets around. Most of my workshops now are by referral but there was a time when I need a good deal of marketing on the internet. I was one of the first to have my own website and I've always enjoyed keeping in touch with people that way.
Fenn: In a time when many people are hesitant to travel, it doesn't bother you to go the distance, as they say?
Loris: I feel very much in the light when I'm doing my work and I do not feel that I would be in danger of anything negative happening.
Fenn: I notice you also call yourself the Crystal Lady. What's that all about?
Loris: I'm a person who uses all the kingdoms for healing. Crystals are really great to use on the physical body. It seems that my healings are stronger and more powerful when I use them.
Fenn: And who's that I see sitting next to you as we're talking?
Loris: That's Fritzl, my power animal. Fritzl is my pet dachshund. Fritzl has inspired me to offer a whole line of natural health and healing products for pets. I also publish a monthly newsletter full of tips and techniques to keep your pet healthy, the natural way. We call it the Fritzl Flash for Fur People and it's very popular.
Fenn: Fritzl certainly looks healthy to me! I'd like to thank you both for being here today and having the interview. When's your next workshop?
Loris: I'm giving a workshop next month in Holland.
Fenn: How can our readers find out more?
Loris: Contact me at margaret@sunhealer.com or visit my website www.sunhealer.com
Nancy R. Fenn is an intuitive counselor whose mission in life is to raise consciousness about the healing arts.
by Nancy R. Fenn
The emphasis today is on working from home with an internet business. We're talking today with Margaret Loris, the Sunhealer. Margaret has an international healing practice based out of Chicago. She markets and promotes her business on the internet and has for years. A successful entrepreneur and gifted healer, Loris travels around the world presenting workshops with the latest healing techniques, explaining to people how they can change their basic DNA programming to bring more success and happiness into their lives.
Fenn: Margaret, in a day and age when so many people would like to have an international business that is successful on the internet, how did you get started?
Loris: I've been a healer from the day I was born. Ever since I was a child I would automatically know things that would help and heal people. When I reached six years of age, I loved God so much that I wanted to be a priest and give everyone Holy Communion.
Fenn: You didn't think about becoming a nun? You must have a clear relationship with your own power.
Loris: Yes, I'm a woman who's not afraid of power. I use my power to help others.
Fenn: Did you find support in your childhood environment for your healing gifts?
Loris: I could see auras and thought that everyone else could too. I never really paid much attention to it, so nobody else made a big deal of it either. Later when I began studying healing techniques, that's when everything finally started to fit together and I could use my inner talents more beneficially.
Fenn: How did you start your healing practice?
Loris: I didn't start it right away. I was a registered nurse specializing in transplants for about twenty one years. I worked in Florida at that time. The work was demanding and satisfying in a way, I mean sometimes we could save someone's life. But I couldn't help thinking, what if these people could have healed themselves? What if they didn't have to go to this extreme in the surgery room?
Fenn: You sound like a healer all right. Did the doctors and other nurses know your powers?
Loris: Yes, they certainly did. I remember as an operating room nurse in a trauma hospital, a neurosurgeon called me Nurse Lazarus, because he said I could bring back the dead. Others would comment on how easily their surgeries went and quickly their patients healed when I worked with them. This is when I knew for sure I was a healer. All my years as an operating nurse plus my healing studies have all given me a complete view of all types and methods of healing techniques. I saw an article this week about God and healing on a national magazine. The world is getting ready for breakthroughs in healing and we're ready, too!
Fenn: What other healing techniques and methods did you study?
Loris: I graduated from Barbara Brennan's four-year training program in 1995.
Fenn: For readers who don't know Barbara Brennan, can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: It's a school that teaches you how to clean, balance, repair, and center a person's energy field.
Fenn: I know that must have been a very fulfilling experience. What else did you train in?
Loris: I'm certified in the Australian Living Flower Essences Academy and am trained as a Rapid Eye Technician.
Fenn: Tell us more!
Loris: Rapid Eye Technology is a spiritual therapy that relieves emotional stress. Flower essences are natural health elixirs derived from flowers. Australia uses flower essences in their hospitals and write about their effects in the nursing journals.
Fenn: I can see that gives you a variety of healing methods to work with.
Loris: I wanted to have a full range of abilities, so I also received a Master's Degree in the Science of Esoteric Psychology.
Fenn: What's that?
Loris: It's healing through contact with your soul and becoming soul infused.
Fenn: Wow. And did you say you are ordained in Kabalah course?
Loris: Yes, I'm very proud of my ordination with the third degree of Karin Kabalah. I was ordained at Saint Thomas Christian Church in Atlanta. This gives me the ability to give Kabalistic healings and anoint the dying. I can enter hospitals now as a healing minister and perform healings there as well.
Fenn: It sounds like you've been all over the world. Many readers would like to build a healing practice like this and have the independence to work for themselves. Who are some of your mentors, people you admire in the healing arts?
Loris: Vianna Stibal, of course! I spend most of my time now teaching people Vianna's DNA healing techniques. As I was saying, I hoped one day to see people heal themselves before they have serious surgeries. Vianna cured herself of cancer using the methods I now teach others.
Fenn: Why is it called DNA?
Loris: Because this technique permits us to go to the original genetic blueprint, our DNA, and reconstruct it. We remove negative energies and patterning. We replace it with positive healing energy.
Fenn: Can anyone learn this?
Loris: Oh, yes. I teach everyone from advanced healers to ordinary people who are ready to take that next step. I think that's what the Aquarian Age is all about โ€ฆ we have the power to heal ourselves and the time is right now! It is also something someone could use to start their own healing practice, just like I have. In no time, you'll be travelling all over the world, too!
Fenn: You built up a practice that is worldwide. Can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: Yes, I'd be glad to. When you have a program that really works, word gets around. Most of my workshops now are by referral but there was a time when I need a good deal of marketing on the internet. I was one of the first to have my own website and I've always enjoyed keeping in touch with people that way.
Fenn: In a time when many people are hesitant to travel, it doesn't bother you to go the distance, as they say?
Loris: I feel very much in the light when I'm doing my work and I do not feel that I would be in danger of anything negative happening.
Fenn: I notice you also call yourself the Crystal Lady. What's that all about?
Loris: I'm a person who uses all the kingdoms for healing. Crystals are really great to use on the physical body. It seems that my healings are stronger and more powerful when I use them.
Fenn: And who's that I see sitting next to you as we're talking?
Loris: That's Fritzl, my power animal. Fritzl is my pet dachshund. Fritzl has inspired me to offer a whole line of natural health and healing products for pets. I also publish a monthly newsletter full of tips and techniques to keep your pet healthy, the natural way. We call it the Fritzl Flash for Fur People and it's very popular.
Fenn: Fritzl certainly looks healthy to me! I'd like to thank you both for being here today and having the interview. When's your next workshop?
Loris: I'm giving a workshop next month in Holland.
Fenn: How can our readers find out more?
Loris: Contact me at margaret@sunhealer.com or visit my website www.sunhealer.com
Nancy R. Fenn is an intuitive counselor whose mission in life is to raise consciousness about the healing arts.
Nurse Lazarus Raises the Dead and Runs a Neat Newsworthy Net Business
"Nurse Lazarus" Runs a Neat Newsworthy Net Business
by Nancy R. Fenn
The emphasis today is on working from home with an internet business. We're talking today with Margaret Loris, the Sunhealer. Margaret has an international healing practice based out of Chicago. She markets and promotes her business on the internet and has for years. A successful entrepreneur and gifted healer, Loris travels around the world presenting workshops with the latest healing techniques, explaining to people how they can change their basic DNA programming to bring more success and happiness into their lives.
Fenn: Margaret, in a day and age when so many people would like to have an international business that is successful on the internet, how did you get started?
Loris: I've been a healer from the day I was born. Ever since I was a child I would automatically know things that would help and heal people. When I reached six years of age, I loved God so much that I wanted to be a priest and give everyone Holy Communion.
Fenn: You didn't think about becoming a nun? You must have a clear relationship with your own power.
Loris: Yes, I'm a woman who's not afraid of power. I use my power to help others.
Fenn: Did you find support in your childhood environment for your healing gifts?
Loris: I could see auras and thought that everyone else could too. I never really paid much attention to it, so nobody else made a big deal of it either. Later when I began studying healing techniques, that's when everything finally started to fit together and I could use my inner talents more beneficially.
Fenn: How did you start your healing practice?
Loris: I didn't start it right away. I was a registered nurse specializing in transplants for about twenty one years. I worked in Florida at that time. The work was demanding and satisfying in a way, I mean sometimes we could save someone's life. But I couldn't help thinking, what if these people could have healed themselves? What if they didn't have to go to this extreme in the surgery room?
Fenn: You sound like a healer all right. Did the doctors and other nurses know your powers?
Loris: Yes, they certainly did. I remember as an operating room nurse in a trauma hospital, a neurosurgeon called me Nurse Lazarus, because he said I could bring back the dead. Others would comment on how easily their surgeries went and quickly their patients healed when I worked with them. This is when I knew for sure I was a healer. All my years as an operating nurse plus my healing studies have all given me a complete view of all types and methods of healing techniques. I saw an article this week about God and healing on a national magazine. The world is getting ready for breakthroughs in healing and we're ready, too!
Fenn: What other healing techniques and methods did you study?
Loris: I graduated from Barbara Brennan's four-year training program in 1995.
Fenn: For readers who don't know Barbara Brennan, can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: It's a school that teaches you how to clean, balance, repair, and center a person's energy field.
Fenn: I know that must have been a very fulfilling experience. What else did you train in?
Loris: I'm certified in the Australian Living Flower Essences Academy and am trained as a Rapid Eye Technician.
Fenn: Tell us more!
Loris: Rapid Eye Technology is a spiritual therapy that relieves emotional stress. Flower essences are natural health elixirs derived from flowers. Australia uses flower essences in their hospitals and write about their effects in the nursing journals.
Fenn: I can see that gives you a variety of healing methods to work with.
Loris: I wanted to have a full range of abilities, so I also received a Master's Degree in the Science of Esoteric Psychology.
Fenn: What's that?
Loris: It's healing through contact with your soul and becoming soul infused.
Fenn: Wow. And did you say you are ordained in Kabalah course?
Loris: Yes, I'm very proud of my ordination with the third degree of Karin Kabalah. I was ordained at Saint Thomas Christian Church in Atlanta. This gives me the ability to give Kabalistic healings and anoint the dying. I can enter hospitals now as a healing minister and perform healings there as well.
Fenn: It sounds like you've been all over the world. Many readers would like to build a healing practice like this and have the independence to work for themselves. Who are some of your mentors, people you admire in the healing arts?
Loris: Vianna Stibal, of course! I spend most of my time now teaching people Vianna's DNA healing techniques. As I was saying, I hoped one day to see people heal themselves before they have serious surgeries. Vianna cured herself of cancer using the methods I now teach others.
Fenn: Why is it called DNA?
Loris: Because this technique permits us to go to the original genetic blueprint, our DNA, and reconstruct it. We remove negative energies and patterning. We replace it with positive healing energy.
Fenn: Can anyone learn this?
Loris: Oh, yes. I teach everyone from advanced healers to ordinary people who are ready to take that next step. I think that's what the Aquarian Age is all about โ€ฆ we have the power to heal ourselves and the time is right now! It is also something someone could use to start their own healing practice, just like I have. In no time, you'll be travelling all over the world, too!
Fenn: You built up a practice that is worldwide. Can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: Yes, I'd be glad to. When you have a program that really works, word gets around. Most of my workshops now are by referral but there was a time when I need a good deal of marketing on the internet. I was one of the first to have my own website and I've always enjoyed keeping in touch with people that way.
Fenn: In a time when many people are hesitant to travel, it doesn't bother you to go the distance, as they say?
Loris: I feel very much in the light when I'm doing my work and I do not feel that I would be in danger of anything negative happening.
Fenn: I notice you also call yourself the Crystal Lady. What's that all about?
Loris: I'm a person who uses all the kingdoms for healing. Crystals are really great to use on the physical body. It seems that my healings are stronger and more powerful when I use them.
Fenn: And who's that I see sitting next to you as we're talking?
Loris: That's Fritzl, my power animal. Fritzl is my pet dachshund. Fritzl has inspired me to offer a whole line of natural health and healing products for pets. I also publish a monthly newsletter full of tips and techniques to keep your pet healthy, the natural way. We call it the Fritzl Flash for Fur People and it's very popular.
Fenn: Fritzl certainly looks healthy to me! I'd like to thank you both for being here today and having the interview. When's your next workshop?
Loris: I'm giving a workshop next month in Holland.
Fenn: How can our readers find out more?
Loris: Contact me at margaret@sunhealer.com or visit my website www.sunhealer.com
Nancy R. Fenn is an intuitive counselor in San Diego whose mission in life is to raise consciousness about the healing arts.
by Nancy R. Fenn
The emphasis today is on working from home with an internet business. We're talking today with Margaret Loris, the Sunhealer. Margaret has an international healing practice based out of Chicago. She markets and promotes her business on the internet and has for years. A successful entrepreneur and gifted healer, Loris travels around the world presenting workshops with the latest healing techniques, explaining to people how they can change their basic DNA programming to bring more success and happiness into their lives.
Fenn: Margaret, in a day and age when so many people would like to have an international business that is successful on the internet, how did you get started?
Loris: I've been a healer from the day I was born. Ever since I was a child I would automatically know things that would help and heal people. When I reached six years of age, I loved God so much that I wanted to be a priest and give everyone Holy Communion.
Fenn: You didn't think about becoming a nun? You must have a clear relationship with your own power.
Loris: Yes, I'm a woman who's not afraid of power. I use my power to help others.
Fenn: Did you find support in your childhood environment for your healing gifts?
Loris: I could see auras and thought that everyone else could too. I never really paid much attention to it, so nobody else made a big deal of it either. Later when I began studying healing techniques, that's when everything finally started to fit together and I could use my inner talents more beneficially.
Fenn: How did you start your healing practice?
Loris: I didn't start it right away. I was a registered nurse specializing in transplants for about twenty one years. I worked in Florida at that time. The work was demanding and satisfying in a way, I mean sometimes we could save someone's life. But I couldn't help thinking, what if these people could have healed themselves? What if they didn't have to go to this extreme in the surgery room?
Fenn: You sound like a healer all right. Did the doctors and other nurses know your powers?
Loris: Yes, they certainly did. I remember as an operating room nurse in a trauma hospital, a neurosurgeon called me Nurse Lazarus, because he said I could bring back the dead. Others would comment on how easily their surgeries went and quickly their patients healed when I worked with them. This is when I knew for sure I was a healer. All my years as an operating nurse plus my healing studies have all given me a complete view of all types and methods of healing techniques. I saw an article this week about God and healing on a national magazine. The world is getting ready for breakthroughs in healing and we're ready, too!
Fenn: What other healing techniques and methods did you study?
Loris: I graduated from Barbara Brennan's four-year training program in 1995.
Fenn: For readers who don't know Barbara Brennan, can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: It's a school that teaches you how to clean, balance, repair, and center a person's energy field.
Fenn: I know that must have been a very fulfilling experience. What else did you train in?
Loris: I'm certified in the Australian Living Flower Essences Academy and am trained as a Rapid Eye Technician.
Fenn: Tell us more!
Loris: Rapid Eye Technology is a spiritual therapy that relieves emotional stress. Flower essences are natural health elixirs derived from flowers. Australia uses flower essences in their hospitals and write about their effects in the nursing journals.
Fenn: I can see that gives you a variety of healing methods to work with.
Loris: I wanted to have a full range of abilities, so I also received a Master's Degree in the Science of Esoteric Psychology.
Fenn: What's that?
Loris: It's healing through contact with your soul and becoming soul infused.
Fenn: Wow. And did you say you are ordained in Kabalah course?
Loris: Yes, I'm very proud of my ordination with the third degree of Karin Kabalah. I was ordained at Saint Thomas Christian Church in Atlanta. This gives me the ability to give Kabalistic healings and anoint the dying. I can enter hospitals now as a healing minister and perform healings there as well.
Fenn: It sounds like you've been all over the world. Many readers would like to build a healing practice like this and have the independence to work for themselves. Who are some of your mentors, people you admire in the healing arts?
Loris: Vianna Stibal, of course! I spend most of my time now teaching people Vianna's DNA healing techniques. As I was saying, I hoped one day to see people heal themselves before they have serious surgeries. Vianna cured herself of cancer using the methods I now teach others.
Fenn: Why is it called DNA?
Loris: Because this technique permits us to go to the original genetic blueprint, our DNA, and reconstruct it. We remove negative energies and patterning. We replace it with positive healing energy.
Fenn: Can anyone learn this?
Loris: Oh, yes. I teach everyone from advanced healers to ordinary people who are ready to take that next step. I think that's what the Aquarian Age is all about โ€ฆ we have the power to heal ourselves and the time is right now! It is also something someone could use to start their own healing practice, just like I have. In no time, you'll be travelling all over the world, too!
Fenn: You built up a practice that is worldwide. Can you tell us a little about that?
Loris: Yes, I'd be glad to. When you have a program that really works, word gets around. Most of my workshops now are by referral but there was a time when I need a good deal of marketing on the internet. I was one of the first to have my own website and I've always enjoyed keeping in touch with people that way.
Fenn: In a time when many people are hesitant to travel, it doesn't bother you to go the distance, as they say?
Loris: I feel very much in the light when I'm doing my work and I do not feel that I would be in danger of anything negative happening.
Fenn: I notice you also call yourself the Crystal Lady. What's that all about?
Loris: I'm a person who uses all the kingdoms for healing. Crystals are really great to use on the physical body. It seems that my healings are stronger and more powerful when I use them.
Fenn: And who's that I see sitting next to you as we're talking?
Loris: That's Fritzl, my power animal. Fritzl is my pet dachshund. Fritzl has inspired me to offer a whole line of natural health and healing products for pets. I also publish a monthly newsletter full of tips and techniques to keep your pet healthy, the natural way. We call it the Fritzl Flash for Fur People and it's very popular.
Fenn: Fritzl certainly looks healthy to me! I'd like to thank you both for being here today and having the interview. When's your next workshop?
Loris: I'm giving a workshop next month in Holland.
Fenn: How can our readers find out more?
Loris: Contact me at margaret@sunhealer.com or visit my website www.sunhealer.com
Nancy R. Fenn is an intuitive counselor in San Diego whose mission in life is to raise consciousness about the healing arts.
Magazine Subscriptions Make Great Holiday Gifts
A Magazine Subscription is one of the most appreciated gifts that you can give for any Holiday or special occasion, no matter what your budget. There are great magazines for all ages and genres, from toddlers to the elderly. There is a magazine subscription gift for everyone on your list.
Toddlers can enjoy a subscription to Wild Animal Baby Magazine, this publication is in a sturdy board format, to be shared with the parents that reach for Parents Magazine for guidance and new ideas.
Children of all ages have so many choices, from Disney Magazines, Kids Discover, Action Comics Superman and Disney Adventures Magazine and so many more. The new kid on the block is bound to be a hit, Mad Kids brings you Spy vs. Spy, lots of jokes, plenty of laughs, puzzles, really dumb interviews, video games, cartoons and a whole lot more.
Teen magazines offer so much, like Guidepost, Boys Life Magazine and American Cheerleader which is packed with stunts, routines and competition tips.
College students and new graduates are so appreciative to receive a magazine related to their profession. The wonderful nurse or nursing student who receives their gift of American Journal of Nursing, Nursing Made Incredibly Easy, Nursing 2007 Critical Care, will know this is a thoughtful gift. Remember your men in nursing, Men in Nursing Magazine is peer-reviewed in four areas: clinical, technological, career and personal with special attention to numerous key areas.
Physicians, hospitals, nursing home administrators and health insurance companies rely on medical coding alert magazines to cut through the coding confusion in their challenging specialties to insure that they get paid what they rightfully deserve.
Hobbyist and the crafting enthusiast love magazines that offer them information and new ideas related to their craft, there are hundreds of publications from Trains to Jewelry Crafts, American Woodworker and Astronomy. Give the gift that collectors adore and appreciate, whether they deal in antiques or make jewelry that they sell on ebay.
Women and men love fashion, cooking, gardening, sports and travel magazines. Imagine yourself, the avid golfer, receiving your first subscription to Golf Illustrated in your mailbox as a gift, every month that you pull that magazine out of your mailbox, you will smile and remember who gave you that fantastic magazine subscription.
Toddlers can enjoy a subscription to Wild Animal Baby Magazine, this publication is in a sturdy board format, to be shared with the parents that reach for Parents Magazine for guidance and new ideas.
Children of all ages have so many choices, from Disney Magazines, Kids Discover, Action Comics Superman and Disney Adventures Magazine and so many more. The new kid on the block is bound to be a hit, Mad Kids brings you Spy vs. Spy, lots of jokes, plenty of laughs, puzzles, really dumb interviews, video games, cartoons and a whole lot more.
Teen magazines offer so much, like Guidepost, Boys Life Magazine and American Cheerleader which is packed with stunts, routines and competition tips.
College students and new graduates are so appreciative to receive a magazine related to their profession. The wonderful nurse or nursing student who receives their gift of American Journal of Nursing, Nursing Made Incredibly Easy, Nursing 2007 Critical Care, will know this is a thoughtful gift. Remember your men in nursing, Men in Nursing Magazine is peer-reviewed in four areas: clinical, technological, career and personal with special attention to numerous key areas.
Physicians, hospitals, nursing home administrators and health insurance companies rely on medical coding alert magazines to cut through the coding confusion in their challenging specialties to insure that they get paid what they rightfully deserve.
Hobbyist and the crafting enthusiast love magazines that offer them information and new ideas related to their craft, there are hundreds of publications from Trains to Jewelry Crafts, American Woodworker and Astronomy. Give the gift that collectors adore and appreciate, whether they deal in antiques or make jewelry that they sell on ebay.
Women and men love fashion, cooking, gardening, sports and travel magazines. Imagine yourself, the avid golfer, receiving your first subscription to Golf Illustrated in your mailbox as a gift, every month that you pull that magazine out of your mailbox, you will smile and remember who gave you that fantastic magazine subscription.
Paul Scott And The Raj Quartet
Paul Mark Scott was not widely known as a writer until almost the end of his life. Staying On received the Booker Prize in 1977; then a TV adaptation of The Raj Quartet in 1984 ensured the author's posthumous fame.
Scott was stationed in India and Malaya from 1943 to 1946, which is roughly the period covered by The Jewel in the Crown (1966), The Day of the Scorpion (1968), The Towers of Silence (1971), and A Division of the Spoils (1975). The sequence of novels ends with Indian independence in July 1947 when most of the surviving British characters return to England: though, Staying On (1977) concerns an ageing British couple who have lived all their lives in India and have no other home and nowhere else to go.
Paul Scott was born in Palmers Green, London, where his father worked at home, drawing adverts for clothes magazines, and his mother was a shop assistant. The family was always hard up and Paul left school at 16 to get a job and bring some money home. While articled to a bookkeeper he met Gerald Armstrong, an estate agent, and became his lover. Armstrong introduced him to the works of Oscar Wilde, which remained a memorable influence, and encouraged him to write poetry. E. M. Forster was also on his reading list.
Scot joined the army as a private soldier soon after the start of World War II and became a supply clerk, serving in India and Malaya and travelling through Burma. Before going abroad, he married Penny Avery, a nurse, who had literary aspirations and for whom he wrote poems. Shortly after arrival in India he contracted a persistent form of dysentery which was to dog him for twenty years. His irritable and moody behaviour has been attributed to this complaint, though drink was a contributory factor. His best writing was completed only after the disease was finally diagnosed and cured in 1964, though he continued to drink.
Scott tried his hand at writing plays in London and won a prize in a Jewish playwriting competition. After demobilisation he worked as an accounts clerk for a printing firm then moved to a literary agency where he combined the editing of others' prose works with the writing of his own. His first novel Johnnie Sahib did not find a publisher until 1952 but it gained the Eyre & Spottiswoode Literary Fellowship Prize shortly afterwards. From 1960 he was a full-time writer - often shutting himself away for days while working on a draft.
'This is a story of a rape, of the events that led up to it and followed it and of the place in which it happened.' [from The Jewel in the Crown]. From the opening of The Raj Quartet, we understand that the subject is rape; but not in the manner of Forster's A Passage To India. The subject is pillage and despoliation and colonial angst. Salman Rushdie complained that The Raj Quartet is a portrayal and perpetuation of colonial myth. Paul Scott would have countered by saying that he tried to show the viewpoint of people living at that time.
Recognition came slowly. In his last years he lived in Hampstead and travelled to Oklahoma where he was visiting writer for two semesters at the University of Tulsa.
His wife left him after one of his drunken rages and sought refuge in a Women's Shelter. By the date of the Booker Award he was dying of cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.
Read more on English Literature at literature-study-online.com
Scott was stationed in India and Malaya from 1943 to 1946, which is roughly the period covered by The Jewel in the Crown (1966), The Day of the Scorpion (1968), The Towers of Silence (1971), and A Division of the Spoils (1975). The sequence of novels ends with Indian independence in July 1947 when most of the surviving British characters return to England: though, Staying On (1977) concerns an ageing British couple who have lived all their lives in India and have no other home and nowhere else to go.
Paul Scott was born in Palmers Green, London, where his father worked at home, drawing adverts for clothes magazines, and his mother was a shop assistant. The family was always hard up and Paul left school at 16 to get a job and bring some money home. While articled to a bookkeeper he met Gerald Armstrong, an estate agent, and became his lover. Armstrong introduced him to the works of Oscar Wilde, which remained a memorable influence, and encouraged him to write poetry. E. M. Forster was also on his reading list.
Scot joined the army as a private soldier soon after the start of World War II and became a supply clerk, serving in India and Malaya and travelling through Burma. Before going abroad, he married Penny Avery, a nurse, who had literary aspirations and for whom he wrote poems. Shortly after arrival in India he contracted a persistent form of dysentery which was to dog him for twenty years. His irritable and moody behaviour has been attributed to this complaint, though drink was a contributory factor. His best writing was completed only after the disease was finally diagnosed and cured in 1964, though he continued to drink.
Scott tried his hand at writing plays in London and won a prize in a Jewish playwriting competition. After demobilisation he worked as an accounts clerk for a printing firm then moved to a literary agency where he combined the editing of others' prose works with the writing of his own. His first novel Johnnie Sahib did not find a publisher until 1952 but it gained the Eyre & Spottiswoode Literary Fellowship Prize shortly afterwards. From 1960 he was a full-time writer - often shutting himself away for days while working on a draft.
'This is a story of a rape, of the events that led up to it and followed it and of the place in which it happened.' [from The Jewel in the Crown]. From the opening of The Raj Quartet, we understand that the subject is rape; but not in the manner of Forster's A Passage To India. The subject is pillage and despoliation and colonial angst. Salman Rushdie complained that The Raj Quartet is a portrayal and perpetuation of colonial myth. Paul Scott would have countered by saying that he tried to show the viewpoint of people living at that time.
Recognition came slowly. In his last years he lived in Hampstead and travelled to Oklahoma where he was visiting writer for two semesters at the University of Tulsa.
His wife left him after one of his drunken rages and sought refuge in a Women's Shelter. By the date of the Booker Award he was dying of cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.
Read more on English Literature at literature-study-online.com
Melcher Media to publish "MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS: The Art of the Everyday Object," the first book in an ambitious new illustrated book publishing program
New York, NY April 9, 2004 -- In recent years, thanks to the commercial success of his landmark collaboration with Target Storesโ€"a partnership that recently marked its five-year anniversaryโ€"Michael Graves has become a household name, equivalent in the public eye with the very concept of โ€œgood design.โ€ In this new book he states, โ€œIn designing everyday objects, I want to encourage the impression of familiarity and also allow those objects to be seen in a slightly different way.โ€ In four original essaysโ€"Figurative Design, Domesticity, Color, Scaleโ€"Graves describes the thinking and themes behind his work, illuminating his unparalleled ability to create eye-catching, witty, and formally beautiful products with popular appeal.
Generously illustrated with more than 200 color images, MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS surveys a fascinating career in design and retail. Featured are instantly recognizable projects with the Walt Disney Company and the Italian tableware manufacturer Alessi, maker of Graves' playful and sophisticated chrome โ€œSinging Birdโ€ teakettle. Since 1985, a staggering amount of two million of these teakettles has been sold worldwide. Also seen are projects with Sunar, Steuben, Belvedere Studio, and Dansk, among others.
And of course, this book documents the Graves-Target phenomenon. Presented are toasters, jewelry, clocks, watches, packaging, telephones, frames, fans, games, a wireless computer mouse, and even a prefabricated modular home. Also included are examples of Target's whimsical advertising campaigns and Graves' architectural renderings of store displays. As Paul Goldberger recently wrote in Metropolis, โ€œGraves' work for Target may be his most enduring legacyโ€ฆthanks to mass merchandising, a tiny piece of an architect's oeuvre is within the reach of everyone. There is also a look, a feel, to the products that is consistent, which comes largely from Graves' own aesthetic. His objects have a playfulness and warmth to them. And almost all of them do something that is wonderful for any object to do, which is make you smile.โ€
Graves' relationship with Target began when the company contributed to the Graves-designed scaffolding that enveloped the Washington Monument during its historic restoration in 1998. Both structural and stunning, the scaffolding provided the proper support and gravitas for this important project, which is also featured in this new book.
MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS is bound in a special high-tech rubberlike blue material, called Shadow and manufactured by Fibermark. When Graves determined the color scheme for the Target kitchen appliancesโ€"blue for touch and yellow accents for dialsโ€"the โ€œGraves blueโ€ not only corresponded to the products' cool and comfortable handles and knobs, but also became a signature color familiar to millions of shoppers.
Among the book's illustrations are technical drawings, product models and prototypes, rare examples of personal sketches, and specially commissioned photographs that give a behind-the-scenes look at Graves' Princeton, New Jersey offices. All of these elements, and the book's affordable price, make MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS a must-have for the professional, student, and general consumer alike.
MORE ABOUT MICHAEL GRAVES
Born in Indiana in 1934, Graves' father was a cattle dealer and his mother was a nurse. When a young Graves told his mother that he wanted to be an artist, she said, โ€œIf you are not as good as Picasso, you will starve,โ€ and suggested that he become an architect or engineer. When he learned what an engineer did, he said he'd become an architect and started making sketches of the houses in the neighborhood.
Graves graduated with a degree in architecture from the University of Cincinnati in1958. He then went on to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, which had become a center for modernist thinking in the United States under the leadership of Walter Gropius, the former director of the Bauhaus. After receiving his masters degree, he worked in the office of designer George Nelson, famed for his tables and sofas for Herman Miller and his playful Atomic and Ball clocks. In 1960, Graves won the coveted Prix de Rome, which brought him to the American Academy of Rome for two years.
Upon returning to America, he became a professor of architecture at Princeton Universityโ€"where he taught from 1962 to 2001, and where currently he is professor emeritusโ€"and set up his own architectural practice. Since 1964, Michael Graves & Associates has undertaken a wide variety of architectural projects worldwide, including multi-use urban developments, corporate headquarters, hotels, libraries, theaters, museums, academic buildings, healthcare facilities, sports and recreational facilities, and housing and private residences. Located in two former houses across the street from one another, the architectural practice takes place in one and the product design division, established in 1991, in the other. In 1994, he opened his own store to display and sell his products. In 2003, the Michael Graves Design Group became an independent company within the larger practice.
Graves' first major public commission was the Portland Office Building in 1982. This was followed by the Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky (1982), the Team Disney Building in Burbank, California (1986), the Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan Hotels in Lake Buena Vista, Florida (1987), and the Denver Central Library (1991).
Recent honors include the National Medal of Arts, presented by President Clinton in 1999, and the A.I.A. (American Institute of Architects) Gold Medal in 2001. About the A.I.A. award, Robert Ivy, Editor in Chief of Architectural Record, wrote, โ€œFor Michael Graves, an architect, teacher, and industrial designer, selection as the Gold Medallist brought peer recognition to a man who has elevated the visibility of architecture and architects around the world. His wildly successful foray into product design has proved that design intelligence can breed value for the larger culture.โ€
Graves' award-winning work for Target was showcased in the exhibit US Design 1975-2000 at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York in 2003.
ABOUT PHIL PATTON
Phil Patton is the author of BUG: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile, DREAMLAND: Travels Inside Roswell and Area 51, MADE IN USA: The Secret Histories of the Things that Made America, OPEN ROAD: A Celebration of the American Highway, and the recently reissued VOYAGER, the official story of the world's first around-the-world un-refueled airplane flight.
He writes regularly for the โ€œDesign Notebook,โ€ โ€œPublic Eye,โ€ and automotive columns of The New York Times and is a contributing editor of ID magazine, Wired, and Esquire, for which he writes on design and automobiles. He also has written for The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, Artforum, Vogue, and many other publications.
He has contributed to catalogs and developed exhibitions at museums around the United States, notably Different Roads: Automobiles for the Next Century, the landmark 1999 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art for which he was curatorial consultant, and On The Job: Design and the American Office at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. He has served as a commentator for CBS News, the History Channel, and several public television series.
He has taught and lectured at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York, Montclair State University in New Jersey, California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has spoken at the Aspen Design Conference, the IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America) national conference, American Center for Design's โ€œLiving Surfacesโ€ conference, the Design Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and other venues.
ABOUT PENTAGRAM
Pentagram is an award-winning multi-disciplinary design firm with offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Austin, and Berlin. One of the world's most respected and prestigious firms, Pentagram's range of clients includes multi-national corporations and museums, book and magazine publishers, restaurants, and airlines, among others. They work on design graphics, exhibitions, products, packaging, environments, buildings, and communications programs.
ABOUT MELCHER MEDIA
Founded in 1994 by Charles Melcher and based in New York, Melcher Media is a content producer and packager with more than 40 titles and 4.5 million books in print. With a reputation for extending the craft of bookmaking and pushing the genres of traditional publishing, Melcher Media combines innovative ideas with exceptional design.
Melcher Media has created successful books for a variety of companies and institutions, such as HBO, MTV, Comedy Central, VH-1, National Geographic, the Smithsonian Institution, Lexus, and Nike for a range of publishers, including Broadway Books, Crown, HarperCollins, Penguin Putnam, Pocket Books, St. Martin's Press, Virgin Publishing, Miramax Books, William-Morrow & Company, Alfred A. Knopf, and Chronicle.
In 2003, Melcher Media produced two hugely popular books, in collaboration with two of today's most successful and favorite magazines: SECRETS OF STYLE: InStyle's Complete Guide to Dressing Your Best Every Day and THE LUCKY SHOPPING MANUAL: Building and Improving Your Wardrobe Piece by Piece, which appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. Another recent top seller was 100 YEARS OF HARLEY-DAVIDSON, part of a larger publishing program Melcher Media developed exclusively for the iconic motor company. And the most playfully perverse genre-bending titles to date, THE POP-UP BOOK OF PHOBIAS and THE POP-UP BOOK OF NIGHTMARES, have become cult classics.
MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS: The Art of the Everyday Object is the first book to be published solely under the Melcher Media imprint. In fall 2004, the company will launch a new list of original titles.
Generously illustrated with more than 200 color images, MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS surveys a fascinating career in design and retail. Featured are instantly recognizable projects with the Walt Disney Company and the Italian tableware manufacturer Alessi, maker of Graves' playful and sophisticated chrome โ€œSinging Birdโ€ teakettle. Since 1985, a staggering amount of two million of these teakettles has been sold worldwide. Also seen are projects with Sunar, Steuben, Belvedere Studio, and Dansk, among others.
And of course, this book documents the Graves-Target phenomenon. Presented are toasters, jewelry, clocks, watches, packaging, telephones, frames, fans, games, a wireless computer mouse, and even a prefabricated modular home. Also included are examples of Target's whimsical advertising campaigns and Graves' architectural renderings of store displays. As Paul Goldberger recently wrote in Metropolis, โ€œGraves' work for Target may be his most enduring legacyโ€ฆthanks to mass merchandising, a tiny piece of an architect's oeuvre is within the reach of everyone. There is also a look, a feel, to the products that is consistent, which comes largely from Graves' own aesthetic. His objects have a playfulness and warmth to them. And almost all of them do something that is wonderful for any object to do, which is make you smile.โ€
Graves' relationship with Target began when the company contributed to the Graves-designed scaffolding that enveloped the Washington Monument during its historic restoration in 1998. Both structural and stunning, the scaffolding provided the proper support and gravitas for this important project, which is also featured in this new book.
MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS is bound in a special high-tech rubberlike blue material, called Shadow and manufactured by Fibermark. When Graves determined the color scheme for the Target kitchen appliancesโ€"blue for touch and yellow accents for dialsโ€"the โ€œGraves blueโ€ not only corresponded to the products' cool and comfortable handles and knobs, but also became a signature color familiar to millions of shoppers.
Among the book's illustrations are technical drawings, product models and prototypes, rare examples of personal sketches, and specially commissioned photographs that give a behind-the-scenes look at Graves' Princeton, New Jersey offices. All of these elements, and the book's affordable price, make MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS a must-have for the professional, student, and general consumer alike.
MORE ABOUT MICHAEL GRAVES
Born in Indiana in 1934, Graves' father was a cattle dealer and his mother was a nurse. When a young Graves told his mother that he wanted to be an artist, she said, โ€œIf you are not as good as Picasso, you will starve,โ€ and suggested that he become an architect or engineer. When he learned what an engineer did, he said he'd become an architect and started making sketches of the houses in the neighborhood.
Graves graduated with a degree in architecture from the University of Cincinnati in1958. He then went on to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, which had become a center for modernist thinking in the United States under the leadership of Walter Gropius, the former director of the Bauhaus. After receiving his masters degree, he worked in the office of designer George Nelson, famed for his tables and sofas for Herman Miller and his playful Atomic and Ball clocks. In 1960, Graves won the coveted Prix de Rome, which brought him to the American Academy of Rome for two years.
Upon returning to America, he became a professor of architecture at Princeton Universityโ€"where he taught from 1962 to 2001, and where currently he is professor emeritusโ€"and set up his own architectural practice. Since 1964, Michael Graves & Associates has undertaken a wide variety of architectural projects worldwide, including multi-use urban developments, corporate headquarters, hotels, libraries, theaters, museums, academic buildings, healthcare facilities, sports and recreational facilities, and housing and private residences. Located in two former houses across the street from one another, the architectural practice takes place in one and the product design division, established in 1991, in the other. In 1994, he opened his own store to display and sell his products. In 2003, the Michael Graves Design Group became an independent company within the larger practice.
Graves' first major public commission was the Portland Office Building in 1982. This was followed by the Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky (1982), the Team Disney Building in Burbank, California (1986), the Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan Hotels in Lake Buena Vista, Florida (1987), and the Denver Central Library (1991).
Recent honors include the National Medal of Arts, presented by President Clinton in 1999, and the A.I.A. (American Institute of Architects) Gold Medal in 2001. About the A.I.A. award, Robert Ivy, Editor in Chief of Architectural Record, wrote, โ€œFor Michael Graves, an architect, teacher, and industrial designer, selection as the Gold Medallist brought peer recognition to a man who has elevated the visibility of architecture and architects around the world. His wildly successful foray into product design has proved that design intelligence can breed value for the larger culture.โ€
Graves' award-winning work for Target was showcased in the exhibit US Design 1975-2000 at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York in 2003.
ABOUT PHIL PATTON
Phil Patton is the author of BUG: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile, DREAMLAND: Travels Inside Roswell and Area 51, MADE IN USA: The Secret Histories of the Things that Made America, OPEN ROAD: A Celebration of the American Highway, and the recently reissued VOYAGER, the official story of the world's first around-the-world un-refueled airplane flight.
He writes regularly for the โ€œDesign Notebook,โ€ โ€œPublic Eye,โ€ and automotive columns of The New York Times and is a contributing editor of ID magazine, Wired, and Esquire, for which he writes on design and automobiles. He also has written for The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, Artforum, Vogue, and many other publications.
He has contributed to catalogs and developed exhibitions at museums around the United States, notably Different Roads: Automobiles for the Next Century, the landmark 1999 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art for which he was curatorial consultant, and On The Job: Design and the American Office at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. He has served as a commentator for CBS News, the History Channel, and several public television series.
He has taught and lectured at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York, Montclair State University in New Jersey, California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has spoken at the Aspen Design Conference, the IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America) national conference, American Center for Design's โ€œLiving Surfacesโ€ conference, the Design Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and other venues.
ABOUT PENTAGRAM
Pentagram is an award-winning multi-disciplinary design firm with offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Austin, and Berlin. One of the world's most respected and prestigious firms, Pentagram's range of clients includes multi-national corporations and museums, book and magazine publishers, restaurants, and airlines, among others. They work on design graphics, exhibitions, products, packaging, environments, buildings, and communications programs.
ABOUT MELCHER MEDIA
Founded in 1994 by Charles Melcher and based in New York, Melcher Media is a content producer and packager with more than 40 titles and 4.5 million books in print. With a reputation for extending the craft of bookmaking and pushing the genres of traditional publishing, Melcher Media combines innovative ideas with exceptional design.
Melcher Media has created successful books for a variety of companies and institutions, such as HBO, MTV, Comedy Central, VH-1, National Geographic, the Smithsonian Institution, Lexus, and Nike for a range of publishers, including Broadway Books, Crown, HarperCollins, Penguin Putnam, Pocket Books, St. Martin's Press, Virgin Publishing, Miramax Books, William-Morrow & Company, Alfred A. Knopf, and Chronicle.
In 2003, Melcher Media produced two hugely popular books, in collaboration with two of today's most successful and favorite magazines: SECRETS OF STYLE: InStyle's Complete Guide to Dressing Your Best Every Day and THE LUCKY SHOPPING MANUAL: Building and Improving Your Wardrobe Piece by Piece, which appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. Another recent top seller was 100 YEARS OF HARLEY-DAVIDSON, part of a larger publishing program Melcher Media developed exclusively for the iconic motor company. And the most playfully perverse genre-bending titles to date, THE POP-UP BOOK OF PHOBIAS and THE POP-UP BOOK OF NIGHTMARES, have become cult classics.
MICHAEL GRAVES DESIGNS: The Art of the Everyday Object is the first book to be published solely under the Melcher Media imprint. In fall 2004, the company will launch a new list of original titles.
Musician and Cancer Survivor Matthew Zachary to Appear on The Group Room!
New York, NY. December 2, 2003 โ€" Matthew Zachary has inspired thousands of people worldwide with his music, performances, and with his triumphant battle with brain cancer. Now Matthew will reach even more listeners, with an appearance on the acclaimed and nationally syndicated radio show โ€œThe Group Roomโ€ (http://www.vitaloptions.org/grouproom.html) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 (from 4 to 6 p.m.).
A performer, composer, and cancer survivor who is also a popular and passionate speaker, Matthew Zachary's story has inspired thousands. Now, in his appearance on The Group Room's inspiring and award-winning weekly syndicated cancer talk show (aired on over 50 stations nationwide as well as XM Satellite and the world wide web), Matthew will discuss his popular Jazz/New Age albums of piano compositions, his own courageous battle with cancer, and his goals in improving patient care, empowerment, and patient-doctor communication. His message is simple: To live life to the fullest, no matter what we face โ€" to be authentic.
At 29 years of age, Zachary has already beaten the odds, surviving the rare pediatric brain cancer which nearly ended his burgeoning career as a concert pianist, as well as overcoming the physical hurdles posed by both illness and recovery. Eight years later, he has retrained himself to play the piano and has taken his place both at the forefront of the independent Jazz/New Age music scene, and also speaks to audiences nationwide on an ongoing basis as a passionate and articulate spokesperson for cancer survivorship.
Those songs became part of Matthew's two hit albums, "Scribblings" and "Every Step of the Way." With tens of thousands of copies distributed to date, Matthew's music has continued to grow in prominence on the Jazz/New Age scene. His beautiful, melodic, and relaxing piano compositions have entertained and inspired fans all over the world, reaching new listeners every day.
About The Group Room (Vital Options)
The Group Room radio show is a weekly syndicated cancer talk show from Vital Options which airs on more than 50 stations nationwide, and is also simulcast on the world wide web and over 100 stations via XM Satellite. This innovative cancer talk radio program dissolves the barriers of time and distance โ€" allowing people from throughout the world to meet, talk, exchange information, support one another and speak in a unified voice about the cancer experience. The Group Room airs on Sundays from 4-6 p.m. EST, 3-5 p.m. Central, or 1-3 p.m. Pacific. Please visit http://www.vitaloptions.org/grouproom.html to check for The Group Room Radio Station broadcasting in your local area.
For more information on Vital Options or The Group Room, please contact Michelle E. Rand, MPH, at (818) 788-5225 or mrand@vitaloptions.org.
About Matthew Zachary
A rising star in the Jazz/New Age and Adult Contemporary genres, Matthew has released two popular albums and continues to meet with unprecedented success as an independent recording artist. A passionate and dedicated public speaker on patients' rights and cancer recovery, Matthew has quickly become one of the country's most popular and inspirational guests and entertainers, traveling the country and working to inspire hope in others battling catastrophic illness. His unique combination of music and message means that Matthew's appearances are consistently memorable, highly original and always compelling.
With endorsement and accreditation from The American Cancer Society, The National Cancer Institute, The American Society of Clinical Oncology, The Oncology Nursing Society, The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, OncoLink and Cancer & You magazine, over 80,000 copies of Matthew's albums have been distributed since 2002.
Matthew Zachary recently achieved a milestone in his career with distribution and presence of his music at over 1000 Hospitals, Hospices, Wellness Clinics and Cancer Treatment Centers in the United States and Canada! His acclaimed solo album Scribblings is used as both therapy and as an emotional support tool by caregivers at these institutions to help bring comfort and hope to patients both young and old, as well as their families. He is also clinically-endorsed by leading physicians, surgeons, health organizations and music therapists, including such distinguished experts as bestselling author Dr. Bernie Siegel (Love, Medicine & Miracles) and many others. His audiences have ranged from the general public to the corporate boardroom, as well as physicians, oncologists, nurses, therapists, practitioners, hospital administrators, pharmaceutical marketing and sales divisions, and pediatric and adult cancer patients and their families.
In addition to The American Cancer Society, Bristol-Myers Squibb and The National Cancer Institute, Matthew's corporate clients and sponsors also include Apple Computer, Lucent Technologies, Merck, Schering-Plough, Novartis, Pharmacia, Roche, The Mayo Clinic, The American Society of Clinical Oncology, The Oncology Nursing Society, The Mayo Clinic, and many more. His albums, conveniently priced at just $10 each, are available for easy and secure preview and purchase online, exclusively at www.MatthewZachary.com.
Don't miss this opportunity to hear a real-life inspiration to millions! For further information, or for review copies of Every Step of the Way or Scribblings, please call publicist Angela Mitchell at (954) 983-5877 or e-mail Paramitch@aol.com. To speak with Matthew Zachary directly, please call (917) 696-5656 or e-mail MZ@MatthewZachary.com.
A performer, composer, and cancer survivor who is also a popular and passionate speaker, Matthew Zachary's story has inspired thousands. Now, in his appearance on The Group Room's inspiring and award-winning weekly syndicated cancer talk show (aired on over 50 stations nationwide as well as XM Satellite and the world wide web), Matthew will discuss his popular Jazz/New Age albums of piano compositions, his own courageous battle with cancer, and his goals in improving patient care, empowerment, and patient-doctor communication. His message is simple: To live life to the fullest, no matter what we face โ€" to be authentic.
At 29 years of age, Zachary has already beaten the odds, surviving the rare pediatric brain cancer which nearly ended his burgeoning career as a concert pianist, as well as overcoming the physical hurdles posed by both illness and recovery. Eight years later, he has retrained himself to play the piano and has taken his place both at the forefront of the independent Jazz/New Age music scene, and also speaks to audiences nationwide on an ongoing basis as a passionate and articulate spokesperson for cancer survivorship.
Those songs became part of Matthew's two hit albums, "Scribblings" and "Every Step of the Way." With tens of thousands of copies distributed to date, Matthew's music has continued to grow in prominence on the Jazz/New Age scene. His beautiful, melodic, and relaxing piano compositions have entertained and inspired fans all over the world, reaching new listeners every day.
About The Group Room (Vital Options)
The Group Room radio show is a weekly syndicated cancer talk show from Vital Options which airs on more than 50 stations nationwide, and is also simulcast on the world wide web and over 100 stations via XM Satellite. This innovative cancer talk radio program dissolves the barriers of time and distance โ€" allowing people from throughout the world to meet, talk, exchange information, support one another and speak in a unified voice about the cancer experience. The Group Room airs on Sundays from 4-6 p.m. EST, 3-5 p.m. Central, or 1-3 p.m. Pacific. Please visit http://www.vitaloptions.org/grouproom.html to check for The Group Room Radio Station broadcasting in your local area.
For more information on Vital Options or The Group Room, please contact Michelle E. Rand, MPH, at (818) 788-5225 or mrand@vitaloptions.org.
About Matthew Zachary
A rising star in the Jazz/New Age and Adult Contemporary genres, Matthew has released two popular albums and continues to meet with unprecedented success as an independent recording artist. A passionate and dedicated public speaker on patients' rights and cancer recovery, Matthew has quickly become one of the country's most popular and inspirational guests and entertainers, traveling the country and working to inspire hope in others battling catastrophic illness. His unique combination of music and message means that Matthew's appearances are consistently memorable, highly original and always compelling.
With endorsement and accreditation from The American Cancer Society, The National Cancer Institute, The American Society of Clinical Oncology, The Oncology Nursing Society, The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, OncoLink and Cancer & You magazine, over 80,000 copies of Matthew's albums have been distributed since 2002.
Matthew Zachary recently achieved a milestone in his career with distribution and presence of his music at over 1000 Hospitals, Hospices, Wellness Clinics and Cancer Treatment Centers in the United States and Canada! His acclaimed solo album Scribblings is used as both therapy and as an emotional support tool by caregivers at these institutions to help bring comfort and hope to patients both young and old, as well as their families. He is also clinically-endorsed by leading physicians, surgeons, health organizations and music therapists, including such distinguished experts as bestselling author Dr. Bernie Siegel (Love, Medicine & Miracles) and many others. His audiences have ranged from the general public to the corporate boardroom, as well as physicians, oncologists, nurses, therapists, practitioners, hospital administrators, pharmaceutical marketing and sales divisions, and pediatric and adult cancer patients and their families.
In addition to The American Cancer Society, Bristol-Myers Squibb and The National Cancer Institute, Matthew's corporate clients and sponsors also include Apple Computer, Lucent Technologies, Merck, Schering-Plough, Novartis, Pharmacia, Roche, The Mayo Clinic, The American Society of Clinical Oncology, The Oncology Nursing Society, The Mayo Clinic, and many more. His albums, conveniently priced at just $10 each, are available for easy and secure preview and purchase online, exclusively at www.MatthewZachary.com.
Don't miss this opportunity to hear a real-life inspiration to millions! For further information, or for review copies of Every Step of the Way or Scribblings, please call publicist Angela Mitchell at (954) 983-5877 or e-mail Paramitch@aol.com. To speak with Matthew Zachary directly, please call (917) 696-5656 or e-mail MZ@MatthewZachary.com.
The Incredible Transition of Dr. King
A long time ago in the fabled southlands of America, the authorities told black people they had to use the "colored" restrooms - not the "white" people ones. It was thought at the time that "mixing the races" would lead to rape, diseases or other unfortunate circumstances. One public restroom each in a building's common area was supplied for colored men, colored women, white men and white women; pretty idiotic, don't you think?
It did make four "water closets" available, two apiece for each sex, which admittedly allowed for somewhat easier restroom availability. But it also undermined the dignity of the American Deep South, which was thus stuck moving from the lack of fair human rights to the promotion of greater civil rights, and eventually to manifesting independent living rights. After all, the involved country was America, and being a democracy, it couldn't long maintain such hostile acts of racial segregation – or discrimination against the physically disabled, challenged, or handicapped.
You could say the 1950s and 60s were a time of incredible transition when it came to the full legal rights of American citizens. What was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s role in this so-called "incredible transition?" For one thing, changing racially segregated public restrooms back to the usual men's and women's ones was considered to be politically important. This sort of thing, along with the Deep South's municipal bus boycotts, was to enable "colored" people to get away from such underhanded referencing to their darker and harmless black, brown or mulatto skin color.
Uniting the public restrooms enabled people to continue their normal way of life, unhampered by racism or any presumed "need" for such segregated facilities. Plus, there was the further needed transition of the municipal city buses, where black people had been forced to sit in the far backs of the buses. As with the public restrooms, there was no need for such isolation, which at the time was being corrected by the acting Civil Rights Movement, headed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so that people could use most public facilities without suffering from further racial segregation.
It was thus seen that transportation segregation wasn't required by so-called "different" racial groups, and neither were racially segregated public restrooms. However, years later in the 1970s and 80s, it turned out that the people who actually needed such "specialty" restrooms were the disabled. However, they needed special, more copious interior stalls with grab bars within them, not unduly physically segregated restrooms.
It wasn't altogether that "incredible" - when you think about it. The needed transition was for some of the restroom stalls to become wider - affording more ease and room for less ungainly wheelchair transfers. The disabled needed more room, sturdy grab bars to help them transfer, and large signs outside on the doors with the blue and white wheelchair access logos.
And there only needed to be one of these stalls available per restroom, not segregated restrooms for the able-bodied and the disabled. Although this had been proposed initially, it was not brought into practice. The racial segregation that had occurred years before caused people to reconsider segregating the restrooms per disabled and able-bodied access.
It had really only been the issues of universal wheelchair access and the universal integration of the disabled with the mainstream able-bodied in buildings, public accommodations and housing which were the needed transitions. These have become important public issues worldwide since the 1980s. Wheelchair users couldn't easily use the internal stalls of public restrooms in the days before wheelchair access, as that was one major transition that turned out to be truly needed, as well as wheelchair access into other public places such as ramps outside of buildings.
As a nurse aide for the disabled, I used to help people transfer from their wheelchairs to the toilets and back in public restrooms. It was part of my job. Due to moderate learning disabilities, my other everyday work skills tend to be poor. I can't really handle waitressing, for example. But I've done great at writing and editing professionally for a career, and helping people in wheelchairs get through daily obstacles has been easy for me.
Wheelchair riding "shut ins" used to stay at home. They had nowhere they could physically go having wide enough doorways, smooth ramps into the buildings, or areas flat enough for wheelchair access. It took years for colleges and universities to become wheelchair accessible, not to mention other buildings - hotels and motels, too. Added over many years, elevators greatly helped. Nowadays, you also see wheelchair ramps everywhere. This makes life easier for all kinds of people, including those using baby strollers, bicyclists, and the elderly. It's quite wonderful.
Stairways were part of what kept people out. The seventies were not a "stairway to heaven" for most people with disabilities. But we're learning. Meanwhile, "colored" and "white" colleges have also been opening their doors to each other, as the USA and the free world begins a phase of politics which we're still entering, one where you might get to go exactly where you please, and do whatever you want within reason. But the days of yore, where you couldn't always do so, were intriguing in their own way, although I'm glad those days are almost entirely gone.
Weirdly enough, there were a few good events, fantastical as it may seem, that happened under the loosening ties of racial segregation. For example, there were great "colored" ball teams, and also some well run and hospitably owned black people managed hotels and motels. They hired black workers, which occasionally involved better work situations than similar white run positions. This was unfortunate, as black people weren't allowed to stay in or work at the white people hotels and motels. Having to contemplate the meaning of the word "colored" was also involved, for certain famous people. Colorful and lively is what they became, as they sojourned the road away from black and white racial segregation.
A concentration camp is the only imagery I can get myself when I think of how things could have ended up under continuing segregation. What monstrosity went worldwide since the "shackles" of such nonsense were rooted in the originally enforced life on our American Indian reservations? Overt "racial cleansing" has multiplied and swelled out from our country, in many a large, small and secretively torturous way. And it has not been so long since black people here in America were forced to sit in the back of city buses. It took a mighty man of talent to get them out of there at all, in spite of recent attempts to force black school children back in.
Nobody likes to sit in the absolute back of the bus forever. It was one of the better strategic moves in our history to get people away from that. Some folks want to "keep on trucking" and serve humanity more, working jobs that involve helping others. But many of these careers require university degrees, which as you know can be difficult to pay for nowadays.
Say, would you like a job that involves no prior experience? It doesn't pay too well, maybe enough to get by. It's called being a "personal care attendant" for the disabled, and I've been one for black, brown and white people. You don't have to be a trained nurse, and open positions are listed under Home Care in the newspapers. If you take this job, which often only involves part time work, you may also experience the salutary effect of enjoying working for the civil rights of people with disabilities. You may also get free meals and a roof over your head by working this job. But without the proper implementation of universal wheelchair access, you won't be able to get out much and enjoy life to the fullest.
Therefore, I want hereby to get the word out about municipal buses being outfitted with reasonably made wheelchair lifts. This involves various programs and accessibility issues – happening all over the modern world. Those white, black and brown people in manual and electric wheelchairs need to be able at last to get on the buses. And trains and airplanes too, not to mention into hotel rooms, apartments, buildings, restrooms, etc.
I wish they made wheelchair access part of the standard legal building codes of houses everywhere on the planet. Nearly everywhere you park now, you see the sign for wheelchair access in some parking spaces. Sooner or later, we will all become disabled, whether colored or white. People in "The Movement" know this well, and have been spreading the word about it for quite some time now. Movement is an umbrella term for all kinds of people gaining and exercising all kinds of human rights.
This is sort of their partial and jumbled story, as told by me. It covers some of racism, sexism, disability rights, gay rights, and God knows what else. It's set in a cross between "the sixties" and modern times. The pitfalls of cigarette smoking also figure in. The one uniting factor is the Civil Rights Movement. I came along much later - when it comes to the major problem with this story, namely lots to write about, I had to "fictionalize" everything. I spent years as a personal care attendant for the disabled, working for black, brown and white people, in dozens of peculiar and challenging situations. It was difficult but rewarding. However, this story mainly concerns a pair of civil rights workers you may have heard of before: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King.
Dr. King has to be Dr. Queen, etc., in case somehow I'm accidentally "racist," to make me be more "controversial," and also because of "libel and slander" laws. It's a serious matter. I don't believe I'm entitled to ever use those two real people, who are both now deceased, as fictional characters. Instead, I'm going to use fictional "people" loosely based on them, and thank them profusely for being "my purple godparents." I know it's okay to write factual accounts using real people, and a lot of what I mention in this story are facts about Dr. King and his wife, but this is highly fictionalized. Not everything I say herein holds true about them. I'm breaking or bending a few rules to write this, so please bear with me.
You are the judge, gentle reader. You will see what you think of the below. But first, grab yourself a tall glass of lemonade, as this is definitely going to be somewhat a long winded - short term adventure in reading.
THE INCREDIBLE TRANSITION OF MICHAEL KING
That was the real name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His black dad may have tried to rescue mankind by bestowing a title on his son, and on himself as well. He named them both after Martin Luther, the white founder of Protestantism, who wanted to rescue people several centuries ago. Such a rescue may or may not be an option nowadays, in the time of Global Warming and worldwide uncertainties about race and religion.
I wonder what it would be like for me to rescue able bodied people for a change, taking them where they clearly need to live. But what if they went the wrong way, and ended up in, of all places - Hell? That is somewhat the place the colored folks were expecting to enter at times, instead of going home. The Ku Klux Klan had a nasty tendency to try to put them there. Being out on the road for lengthy pedestrian marches could make one long to go home again, when your brain doesn't know exactly where you'll end up, and your shod feet are afire with the irritating flames of pinched toes.
Where could I help such people go in a story? You fiction readers always seem to want a certain couple where it belongs. Going to the moon you would put it. Or Mars. Is there another planet where that couple could flourish, while they paved the way for future generations? Or would Hell Itself be the logical result of a racially segregated road, as one has to wonder why they were so near such an ungracious and futile end?
I believe people in wheelchairs are in a similar boat to so called "people of color." Once upon a time, I was a minor component of the Independent Living Movement – a "helper," as they put it in Third World countries. I used to take care of the movement impaired, toileting them, moving them physically from their beds to their wheelchairs, feeding them, and talking to them about their penchant to get in front of moving cars and buildings in order to protest - well, no, actually that may have been a good thing. There were black people around me also doing this work, not to mention white ladies with babies, and Native American, Asian, Jewish and Moslem others. And white men saved me from many an embarrassing moment, too.
It involved the Civil Rights Movement. The wheelchair folks were struggling to get their rights as human beings, in the face of non-wheelchair accessible buildings and the lack of nice flat curb cuts in the sidewalk. That involved risking their lives, tenuous ones that had little capacity to exercise, where they had to do everything from racing down the street, being run over by cars, and popping wild wheelies.
People seem to like to hear or read about such serious matters. It is still called the Independent Living Movement, and its connection to the Civil Rights Movement is relatively unheralded and unsung. One did and didn't spring from the other. One movement was led by white people, and the other was led by black people. This mattered…somewhat.
Meanwhile to my writing this, my seemingly vicious father is already dead, and my incredibly loving mother is catching up with me. I think she is dying of cancer, oh so painlessly. They gave her a tuberculin vaccine and maybe she's going to pull through. She will take it because she's part Native American from Montana, a "Rosie the Riveter" during WWII. My Dad was all American, a mighty man, "Germie-American," killed the "Japs" who were trying to dominate the "Chinks," and had to deal with it his way. He was an absolute genius, and looked dishwater blonde and blue eyed. My Mom is an auburn redhead like me, and gorgeously green eyed. I also have two older sisters, both of whom have nothing to do with this story.
Dad had high blood pressure, which was giving him weird, deep-seated psychological problems. It made him chase us kids around and scream his lungs out at us. He was my hero, the White Man. Yet he did attempt to kill me several times. One time he chased me off a cliff. I like to think it was due to his having been a chain smoker. He was often the sweetest, kindest, most loving man in the world. It still matters. Say, do you think you might like to read about some independent living, or at least some colored people, by now? Believe it or not, this is all excusable background for the main story below, which is largely about racism and the supernatural.
Feminism is also an integral part of it. "Coletta" there has to up and do something "for a change," instead of lounging around. She was a great looking lady, especially when she was young, and she and "Dr. Queen" were a cute couple for two people who cut such a wide swath for civil rights. But she had to play a supporting role as a wife and mother, so she didn't get quoted much. Actually, to be honest, she did much more than that - gave many speeches and helped with other liberty events herself, too. But we've never gotten to hear lots about it. She always stood somewhat in "the great man's" diverse and multiple shadows. Many of these were cast by men who didn't love women well enough at the time to understand the need for equality - or at least a good belief system.
Even FBI surveillance gets a brief mention. It happened frequently during the Sixties that important Civil Rights figures were "checked out" from a distance through wire tapping, bugs and whatnot. A lot of Dr. Queen's actions were thus performed while under surveillance, in a kind of living human "fish bowl." I think it explains nearly everything "crazy" that he ever did. How would you feel if your every action was determined by a camera? You'd be crazy too - if you thought you could freak someone out that way.
Digression is over, for now. I have to talk about my purple African "godparents." I have to thank them, trust me. They are mysteriously appearing in an extravagantly well appointed, but "seedy" and "cheap" hotel room somewhere. They are from the past, and currently no longer exist. They both died, spaced centuries apart, at least to one of them. "Dr. Queen" was shot and killed, and she had to go on without him.
Whether or not she truly loved her sometimes space cadet "hubbie" – I'm sure she did, as she founded an entire huge organization in his name. I'm her fellow widow, having also lost my husband, probably to not dissimilar circumstances of racial discrimination. My husband acted as if he was hounded to death by Christians, as he was Jewish. As he was also disabled, we had our own struggle with entering places with stairs. "Colored" hotels and motels were their own dark realms of intrigue, for awhile enterable but not exitable by their own dark hued denizens.
And those rooms were oft Godlike, I guess, but a mystery to me. They were created by colored people for other colored people, people like Cab Calloway and Billie Holiday, Ma Rainey and Stevie Wonder - he got at least to stay in the white ones and get served by white etc. people. This is because he came along much later in human history. Stevie is blind and got his own book out, "The Secret Life of Plants." It's published only in a form blind people can relate to – on tape. I figure it's about how melanin in human skin relates to chlorophyll in plants. Aren't colored and disabled people wonderful, especially when they happen to be both?
They probably saved my life, from my arrogantly paranoiac father. It had to do with certain circumstances. How does one thank such people? How does one even attempt to know them? My ignorance, and your innocence, dictates this. What can I say to people to whom I may owe my life?
May we enter their life story somehow, and be right there with them?
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
One night, a celebrated chocolate man decided something had gone wrong with his entire set of circumstances, and his wife did, too. Out of nowhere, they had melted into an extremely hot scenario - like unearthly large horizontal giants on a hotel bed. One of them, not being altogether fat, having the build of a boxer, was strikingly virile and handsome with his little mustache to the point where one's mind would be boggled. He was relaxing on "never his own bed" looking at a black and white hotel television, lying down prone and relaxed after a hard day of walking and terse interviews. He was sprawled but composed on top of the pilled and soiled covers, which had seen lots of use and wear, but were still elegantly shiny and soft to the touch.
So was the woman lying next to him. He wondered if the cameras were still watching her, following her loveliness with wiretaps, bugging their simple hotel room, looking for "it." Evidence that they were Communists, into drugs, weirdo sexual stuff, or breaking the "laws." Laws along the line of keeping it all safe for "whitie," not "blackie."
For some reason, a disgruntled look slowly crossed his dark, plump, beautiful - manly, perhaps not lovely to some – Negro facial features. A quizzical, bemused grin crinkled the corner of one sleepy but slanted dark, large brown eye. And then a look of raw, unadulterated lust melded through all of his deeply brown facial features.
For you see, the black Negro man on the bed had ended up with what was once the most precious and prized ownership problem of our proto-nuclear age -- the TV remote control. He cradled it, firmly enclosed in his massive brown hand. He intelligently scanned the television screen, squinting with a gimlet eye at what he saw on it. None of it was familiar.
The man knew one of his black eyes looked eerily Asiatic, especially his right one. The staleness of the surrounding air permeated his brain as the cig smoke seeped away from his fingertips. He knew the room, one of many in which he had practically been living, was smoke-filled. Over the years, ash had seeped into the walls, permeating and blackening the wrinkled fabric of the room's wallpaper. He had guarded himself from the awful effects for millennia, perhaps. He often wondered why people smoked, being the victim of second-hand dust since before he was born. Both the sandy plains of equatorial Africa and the pleasurable smoke of industrial America had clotted his darkening, sighing pink lungs. "Rod Sterling" appears briefly and says: For you see before you a man going almost completely and quietly insane, both with and without his hugely desirable woman. She's not around him as much as he'd like her to be. Normally, he lets his stress out at the camera. His wife does not have much to tell people ordinarily, at least not what he wants to say.
She's right there beside him, but could be killed at any given time. She'd rather, seemingly, pour his coffee and serve him his food. Or would she? To wonder about this is not unusual for her. She took classes at her school so many long years ago on how diseases were the main reason they were in this predicament, stuck whiling their time away in hotel rooms. The classes had informed her of why their lives were a color coded obscenity. The "better people" had to be kept healthy. It was "natural law." She had mainly studied the fine arts, especially singing, and was described in a magazine article as "a promising young alto soprano." But she had also found out the hard way how worried white people were about diseases from blacks.
Really, maybe it was for the reason that white people were generally scared of black people. A disease pandemic was the major point emphasized in the classes Coletta had taken. She "supposedly" once wrote a paper explaining that it might be more worthwhile to face diseases than to tell people they remind each other of their own bowels. She had been studying music and education, but for the greater cause she took a minor side trip. Whether or not it mattered was her own dark secret.
While he's watching TV, you also see one man studying an "Eventide Zone" episode, realizing meanwhile that he must die shortly, and feeling rather "terrific" about it. Actually, he's sighing to himself, and wondering why he's let his life become something of a sexual mess. He's known by the FBI to have one of the world's most wanton sex lives, asking both men and women to be "his" for brief periods of time, although some of this is highly alleged "info," supposedly all captured on tape and on record. Some of it is probably lies, and some of it the truth, as it is known that Dr. Queen does "see" some black ladies. His real friends are keeping track of that fact. But whether or not he's gay or bisexual, no one really knows.
And he needs something like fun and color in his often painful existence, where he's often being accused of leading young people to their deaths from nonviolent resistance against the white authorities. This is because he's destined to die young, and wants to live it up - or possibly, because he wants to demonstrate that he's not afraid of anything at the FBI and others. Sex happens to be a cheap and nonviolent way to do so, kind of a hippy, sixties, free love and drug free way to misbehave - and not be merely "a good little nigger boy." He also wants to not bend over backwards to make himself look unapproachable – like "colored wouldn't dare do that." He's a Negro. He knows he's only headed nowhere, or at least somewhere, when they finally get around to murdering him, in spite of his white authority-enforced religious degrees and belief systems. He does believe in good; whether or not he believes in the white man's God is anyone's guess.
He gets stressed out about his upcoming early demise sometimes, to the point of appearing paranoid. He fears intensively that most people see his four very young kids as giant African animals that need slaughtered. One of those kids is clearly named after him, just as he himself was named after his dad, in order to fulfill his mission on Earth of being a civil rights leader, and also unfortunately, a public martyr, which he doesn't want for his son - he wants him to be like him, not dead like he's going to be, but a leader, someday down the road.
Anyway, our hero is in full dress, a business suit as it were, sometimes called a monkey suit during those turbulent times, and is beginning to deeply indent the scratchy, prickly box spring mattress of many an ancient lost love. He likes life and living, to the fullest when he can, to do everything a black man can do. A lot of white people would rather that he shut up and die, but he's not very game for that. He doesn't like being told what to do.
His university self is watching a show on TV that he secretly liked, as it involved his special underground buddy, Rod Sterling. He could relate to the short, dark, intense white man on it, who was artful and clever and told him a good, moral story most of the time. It was fun for a change back there, when he gritted his teeth and turned away, to watch. Well, Freddie Hitchcock was good for an in-joke as well. Both Rod and Fred promoted white male death interests enough to morbidly fascinate Dr. Queen, who generally liked the news and sports more than TV fiction stories.
Yet the man we see before us also had a good story to tell. He had formed up the Montchapel Bus Boycott, to make sure Negro people didn't have to ride solely in the far back of a city bus. Alabama was - however - not the only place with such problems. In the Seattle Metropolitan area, the buses clearly indicated where "colored" should sit with brown trim around the back windows. What could this be but an unspoken BM reference, even that far north? What being shuffled off to Buffalo would that mean, if it kept up forever, with black people being told they were made of s--t?
Why spend life as a chute joke? It made no sense to him. Maybe gay sex was okay, but not being "lost," out in public as the world's foremost representative of human manure. Nothing was Christian about that – nada.
Sideways slides the black and white camera - Rod Sterling, with his usual slouching class, slips upright in with the following words: For you see, the man on the bed is electronically color coded to die in advance by history itself, and he doesn't know why. It's his fate, written in the stars and planned by many others, although his final destination remains unknown. Some onlookers, noticing his name, have rather Inquisitional plans for him. He keeps surrounded by an entourage, rather like the President, to protect him from being snatched away and burned alive at the stake.
He knows his name is coincidentally Martin, and that he's destined to die a martyr. He knows he is the king of a most peculiar kingdom, not unlike "The King." Elvis was his own brand of a soul singer, but thought of as a white man. Michael, otherwise named Martin, disgruntledly accepts the fact of his own "niggerization" by nearly everyone who must continue their strange color coded way of life.
Almost everyone seems to be a believer in Jesus, God and the Afterlife. Michael believes he'd like his kids to go on living, even if they eventually become white someday. Dr. Queen is there to ensure that they will grow up, even if he himself does not "make it to the Promised Land." Who needs it?
He shares in a wonderful African American subculture, but his own version of it is studiously religious and arrogantly bombastic in its peculiar style. He is his own behemoth of paranoia. In a jovial way, he knows that, but doesn't laugh at himself. Even if he grew large as the planet Jupiter, he wouldn't break so much as a smile on certain occasions. He had to go down in history as an angry young man, not one who "got the joke."
That would be to give into a belief with which he has no accord. And that is why he must now enter The Eventide Zone. For indeed, without a jester, a king, and a kingdom…is there even truly a jest? - The camera then zooms away from Sterling, focusing on a black night of sparkling white stars.
THE INCREDIBLE TRANSITION OF DR. QUEEN
No man is truly a queen until he puts on a woman's dress. "Martin," on the other hand, never notably did so. The head of the FBI was a noted transvestite, but no, not Michael. "J. Edward Hoover" once tried to get Dr. Queen to suicide by "telling" on him to his wife, who got quite a chuckle out of that. As Dr. Queen lay on his hotel bed, he bemusedly wonders what the attraction is to women's clothing, but decides he likes it better on Coletta, who was quite a voluptuous pinup girl in her day, with a lovely figure to match her equally lovely, somewhat wan face.
Instead, he thinks to himself how the color coded nonsense where his people have to sit or eat or live in seedy, cheap places has to do with how things are organic or inorganic, as he's been involved deeply with his college of supposed choice. He was fourteen when he began attending it. His whole life was laid out before him, in spite of the hard work, and he had to go to that particular accredited and acclaimed Negro oriented school. At fifteen, he breezed through by plagiarizing most of his white oriented paperwork. His graduate thesis was a thus a work of artifice, not art. His speeches, lowest common denominator to reach the masses, are written largely by his fellow ministers. He is however a fully accredited minister in the Baptist Church, able to marry people legally, or lecture them about the twin devilries of racism and classism, either.
But he's not really able to attain the Presidency, as many people want him to; the separation of church and state precludes this. Being kept from other high social positions by white people caused this problem, where a Christian minister must "pine" for death and not for life. And he knows the hotels he's staying at are no longer cheap. Racial segregation had led to an impasse, where many "colored" commodities were getting to be as good as or better than their "white" counterparts – such as jazz music.
But as he lies there on the bed, his life is running through his head, as a kind of demolished motion picture show. He'd had to fake his own resume to prove he wasn't scared of going to Hell when he died, as white people liked to accuse them of that by literally putting them there. He had to face it down as a civilized white man, by being unafraid in the face of certain death, and worse yet, he enjoys doing it that way for others. Sometimes. Mostly, he figures his end will come from gunshot wounds.
Everywhere he'd been at his brief college, a tacky red carpet was splayed out for him. Most of his friends seemed to be other Baptist ministers. And he did attend to the great place's more esoteric science classes, where they'd taught him racism was part of human nature. He really liked to think he had written a good thesis proclaiming loudly against those "Natural Laws" where he wasn't allowed to marry the wife he'd chosen. According to racial supremacists, his fair-skinned Coletta wasn't allowed to so much as exist. A beautiful young lady, she'd done more for the Civil Rights Movement than most people knew about, while still remaining faithfully wed to her dark-hued gentleman.
But he is wearing velvety black skin, he was my "knight in shining armor" you see, and he is feeling sleepy, large and queasy because he hears his wife preparing him dinner in the kitchen suppinette. They had hiked around town by themselves for a lark, without their entourage, and picked up some lovely casual food at an Asian grocery store. This hotel room at least had a cooker and a fridge, not to mention a cigarette machine. An extremely prominent grayish one - it stood in the hallway outside their room and had a silvery top - which was always cleaned off. The colored maid had also visited their room that morning, and all was in tip top shape for them.
This black Negro man, not being an animal, doesn't feel like he has to work too hard for a living. He's been plugging away at words all his life, and his minister friends say they have helped him write some of his speeches and college term papers, mostly just to speed things along, which Dr. Queen thinks is very unimportant next to killing people because of their skin color. He yawns for a moment, stretching, feeling overweight from excessive comfort eating due to worrying too much. And he can't go out for walks much anymore - he's too easy to spot.
He feels a bit lazy at the present moment. Maybe even sleazy. How had he done a damn fool thing right? He had been stuck thinking that to himself earlier as he punched the cigarette machine with one plump index finger, receiving a pack of Kools. Usually he doesn't smoke, but he was feeling like celebrating a little. It wasn't very often that he had his wife traveling with him, for a change.
He appears slightly guilt ridden as he slinks down the hallway. He knows I don't know if he even smoked. He knows my parents smoked. And he knows, while lying there, all about me. He had seen the black and white episode on TV in his hotel room, on Sterling's show. Twice, now. Why? And far more familiar to him was the look of the people on the show, in ways that none of them should have been familiar to him. Why, he muses to himself, do I know about this stranger who is haunting my head? The drug certainly works; he gags, as he balls up one fist. But the childish cough he was going to withstand filters away. He is stalking slowly, slowly back to the bed, while carrying the cigs he bought.
In the prior Eventide Zone episode, the one Martin viewed originally, he had seen my father cruelly teasing me into running into my bedroom. I was white, and so was my father. But I was not entirely white. My father had run after me screaming what he was "gonna" do to me. I had ended up under my bed - scrunched up against the wall. My father obviously tried to not lift up the bed to tear me to pieces. He scrabbled under the bed with one arm. He then finally left. Later - I found a little black hole in the wall - and had disappeared into it momentarily. I stayed in the hole to escape my violent father, in case he came back. I emerged unscathed after a long, long while.
He was someone whom I dearly loved. Maybe I had been a bad girl, to get fat and all. And I had wished someone could find me in the tiny hole and save me. No one seemed to have done so. And my father was harmed psychologically by the misery of having lost me forever. That is because, in the episode as seen by Dr. Queen, I'd permanently vanished. It wasn't so much "the poor girl" got through it: I'd disappeared away completely. When my father came back in the first episode, I was gone forever.
Funny thing was, in the newer episode Dr. Queen was watching, the ending had changed. The little girl was not lost, and had ended up elsewhere. And the entire episode was now in color, very realistic color at that. Dr. Queen wondered when the hotel had managed to install color TV in their room. He pinched himself and felt a slight "pang," and so knew he wasn't dreaming. He had thrown the open packet of cigs down on the night stand near him.
The black man, lounging around on the well appointed soft bed, sighs to himself about the episode. It'd reminded him about something stupid in his own upbringing, which he had both liked and disliked. His father was a yeller, and had been an occasional "curser." It wasn't such a nightmarish upbringing as the little girl's had been. No one had been around his small but sophisticated home, jotting all down on a reporter's notepad. Instead he recalled family and friends, almost a worthy life that implied greater living to be, if he could get the others moving in time.
But cameras have been around him frequently lately, and the black Negro man feels like he has become pretty much only a personal media circus. Would anything he has done mean anything real to someone, his own human history? Would it matter if he died in public, or in private? He didn't want to die, or make it look like he liked dying. He'd rather work – hard.
He honestly doesn't even know what the Godlike reason is why he's stuck working for a living, so often away from his family, giving odd speeches here and there. He has a doctorate in the religious sciences, and wishes he was able to answer all of those theosophical questions. He knows the whole thing is a political setup for men to use to manipulate others' minds. But he's a phantom stranger who uses big words indeed - such as philanthropist and egalitarian - and perhaps lethargic toad. He really thinks he is one, honest! The phrase "hopeless romantic" also comes to mind. He is stuck forever trying to write a perfect speech, as he must "dumb" them all down. Stuff like the "I Have Dreams" speech was written by an obscure third party, most of it taken from a speech by a fellow minister. And all of his actions, including the wiser ones, are questioned by everybody.
He is trying to get some well deserved rest while lodging around, a sniper gun sight could spy his bulky figure through the dirt streaked window one foot away from his bed, and he hears noises outside that don't belong to him. He's very anti the Viet Nam War. He knows communist Africa could attack the United States through the atom bomb. One of the colored motels he was going to stay at was recently bombed, probably by the Ku Klux Klan. He is a pacifist, but gets angry enough to kill people sometimes.
Whether or not he ever "punched out" white women is not known. Some people said he used church money to buy "loose" girls, and then beat on them. It was the infamous "Marquis de Sade" claim. Lonely on the road, he had seen black hookers, according to his minister friends. They said he was nothing but absolutely gracious with them. Now Coletta was with him - at his side for a change, but so what?
I have a dream, he thinks to himself. Good line for a great speech, by an absolutely phony white man. I'll never be one, he muses. He has his own self doubt all nailed. He drifts off for a few moments and subsequently has the strangest actual dream as he snores profoundly on the bed: a decade after a herd of Africans and other groups have defended humanity through the Mahatma K. Ghandaian Jesus Christ leading philosophy of being a peaceful warrior, a small passel of white wheelchair people, all disabled, learn how to get Seattle's Metro buses reequipped with proper wheelchair lifts. They are thus able to get their civil rights that way – mainly, the right to spontaneously ride the bus, without it being a "planned trip."
As some of them must go out, or perhaps die along the way, they need to get on the bus. Every other transit option is a hard to arrange trip. No spontaneity. The disabled people have to fill an independent living need, even if it involves white women deliberately falling off the first misguided attempts at wheelchair lifts. One of them did go ahead with that, and she managed to live through the hospital stay later. If she were here, she would say that being alive is the best way to go – but one must risk death for a good reason. It's better than waiting to die of a head cold.
How do they do that, in Michael's dream? The original "folding camel" lifts on the buses are lousy. Wheelchair people might get hurt on them, especially little old ladies. So the younger disabled radicals boldly risk their lives purposefully pointing out how faulty the lifts are by riding them the wrong way. One, John Tyler, is my 350 pound weighing radical black haired white Indian hero man. He successfully breaks one of the faulty lifts. The guy has polio and is seriously disabled, and dropping like that is extremely hard on him – and anyone else, if it happened accidentally.
The new lift company then puts the right lifts on the buses. Those "jobbers" hold up to 1000 pounds and have solid metal flaps on the rims of the lifts to ensure your personal safety. And disabled women were involved in the attempt to make sure the lifts didn't support "worthless" life forms. One of the ladies apparently deliberately fell off the folding camel lift, once. Basically, when you gotta go, you gotta go. But fortunately, she lived through it. Gee, I wish I was that kind of brave.
Anyway, I come along. I'm the girl as the personal care attendant for one of these brave wheelchair people, a male handsome Jew who is the son of two Austrians who fled the Holocaust, and I help ensure the buses are properly ridden once the wheelchair person is strapped in. I have to do battle during this time with white male bus drivers who want to strap in the wheelchair people improperly. I was the little girl who disappeared through the hole in the wall to avoid her white male father. I manage later to not disappear and hide. I calmly end up accepting having to strap people in while being "bugged" by those drivers, until they learn how to do it right. Their argument is that disabled folks "can go ride in the vans." Some of them drove vans for the disabled, and I made friends with one such driver, so in general they weren't actually that discourteous.
Nonetheless, I make sure my Jewish fiancée is strapped into a slot on the bus, with what used to be airplane cargo straps from Boeing. It works. Later on, we get married in Golden Gardens Park in Seattle, near Ballard Locks, through a hippie wedding. Both sets of our parents and all our living relatives and friends are there. It's quite a mixed rainbow crowd of different skin colors and religions, white men and disabled folk alike. Our catering is Matzo Mamas' cold cuts and cheeses combined with my family's hot dogs and hamburgers -- plus potato salad. It's a virtual smorgasbord. Ron and I are wearing Hawaiian shirts, and it's a lot like a luau too.
Dr. Queen, feeling relaxed, hungry and happy, finds he's applauding away at a great distance of deep, sleepy space and time. Largely, he's trying to fight the image off. The wedding looks mostly like white people. As he turns to Coletta, he wakes up, as the dream ends with many black disabled people not being able to ride the bus. These are guys like him with no lives of their own. No women to marry, no way to make children. No real job they'll be allowed to work, no real place to go. They're stuck living at United Cerebral Palsy Residential Center, working for Boeing, putting together machine parts and not being able to work for an honest living.
And yet, they all need to ride the bus. It would get them out - help them look through a window. The whole entire situation robs them of anything like true dignity, and what they need is to learn to read - mainly. They're stuck in a strange existence until something gets done. They need to help themselves. Unfortunately, none know if they can. What is the meaning in such a life, you might ponder? I have been away from those black men for so long, maybe somebody has done it, and they are at least riding the buses at long last.
The black man on the bed can barely think. Deep sleeplessness...it will be affecting her again. She was always lovely, but he had noticed her looking extra bedraggled today. She needed something real. Something good in her life, some way better she could feel.
"Coletta, are you ready for this? Something is coming across on the TV that didn't belong to Sterling. I remember the previous episode -- and this is not the same one in any way, shape or format. Some such is way wrong, and it's happening, my dear mother goddess. Do you suppose we can do anything about it? HMMMMM!?!?!" He stormily threw an unusually level gaze at her, but glanced away. He was always afraid of his own arrogance with her. But she looked back at him without any fear in her face.
All that ran through both their minds was: we could use a vacation, not more utter nonsense in our lives. Instead, now we have to hear from the supernatural.
"Well," she said dryly, her throat parched with smoking the cigs and the surrounding arid atmosphere, "I suppose we can die at it, handsome, but is that all we're going to do -- given this?" Is that all there is, she meant. She regained her composure, stretching out on the bed in a luxurious business suit of sorts, one that cannot be described herein but as very lovely in the dark, and yet quite wretched. It was relatively expensive and grey, but rumpled somewhat. For you see, she had been about town, and her feathers, as her man knew, were completely ruffled. She relaxed assiduously on the bed, and reclined. "Yes, you're right." She snuggled next to him. She knew something weird was set for the premises. A sudden heat wave had been drying everyone up, even black people. She is staying the day with him in the middle of a dreadful summer, somewhere in Mississippi, where the summers are usually heat drenched. It is her time with him, found on the run, when they could get together and be.
Something is certainly melting in their mutual intellectual heavens, and as the two spontaneous detectives are learning, there was nothing right on television. Doctor Queen is flipping through several channels at once. He keeps punching the remote with his thumb, wondering why they had what appears to be cable television. He knows that in 1967 or 1968, although the exact year they're in was weirdly escaping him, all they have is the ability to manually change the channels. The TV is set up for manual, not automatic transmission. He suddenly recalls it was supposed to be 1968, and he has an eerie feeling something monumental has already happened.
Dr. Queen doesn't know what they are watching, but he and Coletta had certainly come across something new. What was going on, really, that didn't involve bombings, dead people and having a color coded name? It's a little hot outside, the weather. Steamy, sultry, Mississippi mysterious. The television is full of the war coverage, and local news, sports and weather, but it's not right. It is all from the future, which is getting to be pretty obvious. The war is being held in Iraq and the Middle East, not Viet Nam and South East Asia. They both wonder if cig smoking, rare for them, has anything to do with this particular mystery switch.
Much earlier, back when everything was still normal, they had seen an unusual sight. Two perfectly white cigarettes had been laid out by someone on the small and dingy plastic table next to their hotel room bed. They had obviously been set up by and for someone else, who had roomed there and left. Yet they'd seemed briefly inviting. Both Dr. Queen and his Coletta had broken down briefly, had decided to enjoy life, and had lit up.
They felt themselves drifting back and forth in time, between the past and the present, with a feeling that the future cannot be far behind . . .the not so fat man gets uncomfortable, and breaks the silence. "Hey, Mommy Dearest there, what do you think? How about exploring outer space without all those Chinese veggies between our teeth?" He neatly flicked away the leftover part of his burnt down cigarette. "Did you unpack our toothbrushes? What do you say? Let's go exploring. The last thing we were ever responsible for was Viet Nam. Or these bed bunks, sweet as they almost are. I honestly think the war is the reason they want to kill us. Some of us are even Moslems, you know, their old enemies. Did white people do this? It's like something out of "Ray Radbury" – all of a sudden, we're in the future. Something tells me we have to go somewhere else."
He smiles at her. Is there any other soul out there who thinks Africa was maybe the original pits? Heavy duty heat. Dr. Queen thinks, I don't always like being me, but I'm all we've got. I don't want to go back there, never. "What is going on? They expect someone listening to them as they rant and rave about Heaven and Hell. Africa was Hell, but this USA is the Heaven, you know...?"
Coletta is silent. She likes silence, but has a degree in something else. "You know there's no God, we are their God, and we did leave the planet earlier. Whoops, lack of sleep." She brushes her hair back with one long light brown finger, which is perfectly polished. She glares at the finger, realizing it wasn't all that red and gorgeously shiny previously.
She tiredly spurts, "Yes, something is wrong with one who signifies nothing. Perhaps it is me, perhaps it is you, Mr. Flirt, and perhaps it is the weather…" A hole in the wall diner appears in both of their minds. One of her "other kids" had agreed to meet them there. Their Johnny was like a son to them, but was also someone else's child. The media of late had made a fuss out of how he had children out of wedlock. How quaint, Coletta sighed, considering that any unwed reporter could be so picky.
Coletta is sighing as she is lying there, sweating mildly. It is so hot. Love with her man is stolen on the fly. Why, this room doesn't have a fan, she thinks. She slowly drags her hand down his sizeable business suited chest, thinking things don't change in a thousand years. "Yes, they are into watching us. Why do we in particular attract all of that attention from the European Inquisition? That's all the KKK ever will be. It is the most curious ideal I've ever heard of – that YOU PEOPLE can go to Hell." She smiles, meaning why does the Klan attack colored people: blacks, Indians, Jews, Chinese, and whoever? She had and hadn't studied the history of it. Race wars tended to escape her as to having any realistic meaning to them.
"We're willing to be at peace with them. Why don't they leave us alone? Why do they insist on f-----g us over, when they have f-----g themselves to blame?" Ladylike, Coletta coughs delicately into her curved hand. Everything they do they do for the FBI, which is constantly taping them back there in the 1960s, where they belong. A record is being made of their every other action, in an attempt to arrest them for breathing.
"Yes, Coletta, you simply overuse their words. We are not even creatures of cussing, really. Some days I feel like a closet imitation white man. We able bodied Africans will simply never get it…cannibalism. I suppose it freaks out their mental abilities. They simply MUST cannibalize us, because they have figured out that we are cannibalistic electronic color coded parts, lost in the mechanisms and machineries of time, don't you think? And we do have sex…?
He gently and sweetly strokes her thick, luxuriantly pomaded black hair. They had four children, in a way, maybe more out there somewhere, but enough was enough. Coletta frowns at him summarily."No, we don't. Not in front of them. We are going to look for that hole in the wall, starting now. Get up, you old dog, don't go for the liquor as you never do that, you know, and we don't have any in here. I am dragging you to that wall if you don't get out of bed," she snarled, the angry words jerking out of her melting self.
Sometimes she felt inwardly peeved, when she thought her husband was doing all the damned work. She did help out from time to time, and was on several important committees. But now this: a strange little almost white girl wanted rescued from death at the hands of her overlord white father, whom Coletta could see screaming at her. She is hot, tired and doesn't want to respond to any such rescue requests. She instead glances down at the cigs pulling their own suck on the bedside table. Smoke curls and wafts up inches from where they lay. Something seems mildly different about the nature of the smoke. Is it only tobacco? It hadn't tasted quite right.
Coletta finally figures out that it was, well, probably weed. She slowly perceives that the almighty suction device of babyhood has something to do with it. For some reason, a person has "just got" to smoke, even though it causes lung cancer, whether it's weed or tobacco. She had tried to avoid smoking, but we all have oral fixations. Yes, that was it. Then a certain disgruntled look slips across her silent face as everything goes black. Time sneaks away from the present as it fell back into the past. Falling, she reeled slightly from all of the hard work she had done before, giving one of her own public speeches - and she fainted, her head racing down to the very hard wooden floor.
Dr. Queen's muscular arms stoutly caught her. They were both standing upright, with Coletta's supple heels clicking on the well polished hardwood floorboards and Dr. Queen's large men's shoes firmly planted on his feet. For the first time ever, they realized how odd was the perfect fit of them, how silent the stranger who seemed to be guiding them. Their gold wedding rings had also been a perfect fit when they got married years ago, and their previously raw, uncomfortable feet were now encompassed in snug, patent leather shoes. This was a bit of a problem. Earlier, they both knew they had kicked off all four of their tight, expensive thick soled shoes. What were they doing still there, with their feet still encased in previously peeled off stockings? First their television set, and now this. It had been easy enough to change the channel, but it was a color TV set.
Had they been smoking an illegal substance…was that stuff Mary Jane? Coletta knew her shoes had been grey soft toed walkers. Now they were black stiletto high heels, quite fashionable, but not what she'd been wearing a few minutes ago. This had something to do with the little girl, and the presumed hole in the wall from the TV show.
Earlier, they had been to a lovely old Chinese hole in the wall restaurant. Johnny had picked up the dinner for them. They'd eaten together and enjoyed it without cameras around everywhere, for a change. Now they were hungry again, for what reason their churning minds fathomed, must have something to do with the cigs being more powerful than they looked. But it had seemed so harmless to take a moment off. Dr. Queen's face shifted into an wide, exotic African smile, the Black Cat.
"I know…perhaps not enough, my darling, as I am an accredited genius, but I've the feeling we're needed somewhere. It has to do with this mysteriously hot onset of weather. We are experiencing a Field Effect of sorts. I wonder if it's at all because we are dark. Let us look for that hole in the wall now, before it closes up completely. We are definitely needed by something in there. Somebody else is facing death completely, and we are needed…someone," he spurted out with a dry chuckle, "needs us off of cigarettes. We're supposed to not smoke them anymore. We were the university PhD crowd, nah, and she never understood us that profoundly. We are going there now, sugar, so come with me to the wall and let's see if that hole is there. Courage? She says she has not her own life," Dr. Queen smiled down at Coletta.
He ended this speech with a gentle note as he stared at his reflection looking back at him through a woman, a real and light black woman. A lady of color - a colored lady. He gripped her hand tightly, swept one arm around her small waist, and practically dragged her through the wall. But they made it down the brief unlit hallway to the little black hole in the wall - and were staring it over, as if waiting for it to speak. As they stood there, beads of salty sweat dropped from both their intent faces.
One of them, with the guts and panache of a lion in what he thought of as the hollow, shabby body of a man, was caught trying to grimace the hole away. Surely it was only another death threat for his woman. One of the reasons his wife was not a "limelight" person was so she could live to take care of their children. Coletta looked surprised, felt hungry, and yet neither one of them could eat the small hole -- nor did both know they could not.
They were brutally overwhelmed by the simple fact they were starving. Yet life itself hinting around about food and drugs was not the answer. The cigs were way back there, and they were someone else entirely as they stared at the little black hole in the wall. Whatever was in the cigs not only clouded their brains, it made them think mainly of food alone. What that meant about how their universe had come unraveled was unknown.
They felt the divine lift "cigs" could give them, and hated it. Yet at the same time - as the brief high dribbled away - they felt like someone was trying to thank them for something, and show them some gratitude. Someone, perhaps the little girl, was trying to give them as much assistance as she could. The drug high was to get them over it, and talk them permanently out of smoking. Dr. Queen filled his hefty chest with a clean breath of air, feeling grateful for that - but growing angrier by the second.
"Your move," he muttered with exceeding impatience. Coletta knew she wasn't talking to him, and then something dawned on them both. Cigarettes and tobacco smoking had been invented by Native Americans, and that had something to do with what was now happening. Was it the Indians trying to tell them something through tobacco? A thank you for existing, for helping them too? They did not want to leave from their assigned task, or be poisoned by natives...as they were originally displaced Africans.
Coletta had studied at her school how all humans had originally come from Africa. We had spread out, summarily becoming other racial groups. There was, however, another school of thought where humanity was separated into several species, meeting up again later.
Were the Indians, Native Americans, somehow an enemy of theirs whom they had discounted? Did this mean Cherokee or whatever tribal vengeance against them, where they had unknown victims due to hypocrisy? The black people marches for their civil rights – was it a mistake to base them on The Trail of Tears? Coletta gulped, recalling that for the Indians, the enforced long marches were much more like The Trail of Blood. Blown away Native American heads, bodies dropping by the roadside as the whites made them walk for hundreds of miles - was this some strange form of vengeance against them?
"No," she sighed decisively. "We Negroes didn't make them do that. Long marches have occurred throughout human history. This is all due to inhalation of that idiotic drug. It must be pot. I've never been this hungry in my entire life, and we already ate."
The dark couple had accidentally broken down and smoked those two leftover perfect cigs, after they had a couple from the pack Dr. Queen had bought. Were they poisoned? What an idiotic assassination that would be. No cameras as they pitched to the floor in their final throes of restless death agonies. Dr. Queen harrumphed, as Coletta deeply bowed her head to such an obnoxious fate. She performed her own feminine glare.
After a short pause, Dr. Queen spoke. "I know she's needed, somehow, and only wants to thank us for being her alternating purple godparents, yet I do know that racism is a field effect that I studied back at that college in one of my science classes," said Dr. Queen.
The Right Reverend and all. Perhaps the nearest thing to God on the face of the planet was one proud and virtuously arrogant black man. "We must go vanish through that hole for a second and leave. Yet I know we will back out on this empty promise and broken dream that way. Shall we do either, or both? I assume we will risk not coming back. Yet our reality has been so disrupted, I don't see how we have any kind of a choice."
"Colored, white, white, colored?" coughed Coletta. "How they must keep us apart for fear of diseases, African and European, except when we exist at their sexual whimsy for the sake of the almighty dollar. What an empty place we must leave momentarily, my darling. Shall we do it, and show them we were Africans? Where does that obvious portal lead us to? Death?" She smiled at him, and he thought he saw the little girl he knew from her family photographs. "Perhaps the Klan has finally mastered further magic powers than wearing those sheets while riding horses - and appearing mysteriously at night."
"Should we take such a quaint leap in time, go through a purple hole or not, and see into such a future? They will never let us approach the arousing majesty of such an arresting moment, you know," she sighed decisively. "They want to see us groping about sexually in public. We are too conservative for that...the Cotton Club and our entire culture aside. We were practically created to be left to our own devices."
Coletta's thoughts faded away. It felt like someone was doing her thinking for her, but she realized she had her own private self intact. She chuckled to herself inwardly. "This is not anything like ladies' bridge night. I thought you said the worst thing that happened when you were alone was on the spot interviews about your views on the Viet Nam War and communism, and your strange position on . . . "
"Well, Coletta, as long as YOU feel brave," cut off Martin, "We can play a game of detective work. What am I but the Batman's Fatman? My growing fat is merely to survive the bullets, to speed the power of my elocution to help others, and because I already have you. We have been out in the open for quite a long time. The African veldt was stuffed with animals against us. Anything at all could come through that window over there," stated the portly black gentleman as he stuffed a strange pocket watch out and put it back in. "I have a feeling we have to travel forward in time, and I do not know why, except to rescue that little girl. Surely you're feeling particularly courageous?" As his wife was endangered, Dr. Queen did not feel much that way, so he thought to himself, posing a simple question to God. He was quite certain someone else was listening.
Something next told him to examine himself from the outside in. As Dr. Queen looked down, he was puzzled. He could see his waistline, and he really didn't feel as overweight as he had before. It was as if he was slowly shrinking back to his previously lean self.
Coletta looked at him without that lost little girl look, and then sighed. "Those cigs are indeed a drug from Hell. I suppose we shall simply have to go back to where we belong, back to the future, back to the past, back to…where we must have come from."
"Hush up, Coletta, and let's jump hoodoo the damn hole, now, lady." He looked at her with a terrific smile on his lips. "We are simply needed elsewhere. So what's wrong with taking a cha
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