attitude transplants

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Earth hour 2010--today, Saturday march 27

Join more than 1 billion people in turning out your lights for one hour, at 8:30 PM. Watch your whole city go dark! See the web site: Earth hour

BIG REACTIONS for what I want!

Learned via SonRise and recently re-learned via Jonathan Levy's brilliant book "10 things you can do right now for your child with autism":

Big reactions work out to a reward. Big reactions to negative stuff, and big reactions to positive stuff--they almost always cause a repeat of the behavior. So why were we trained to react BIG negatively to stuff we don't like our kids doing, and only react moderately positively to stuff we do like?

Tonite I heard via channels that one of my lovely girlikins had been pushing other children at school this term. She had mentioned a couple weeks ago that she sometimes pushed people even though she didn't want to--she felt she couldn't help it. I failed to stop and have a talk with her about it then. So tonite I asked "So, lovely little one, remember how you said you had been having trouble with pushing people and not being able to stop? Would you like to have a talk to see if we can help you find a way to stop?"

And she said, with a big delighted grin, "Oh! I've stopped! I tried and tried really hard and now I don't push people anymore!"

I figured it was time for a BIG reaction. So I made my facial expression BIG, and my voice BIG, and my body movements BIG, and I picked her up and squeezed her and said in my BIG voice "HOORAY!!!!! YOU ARE AMAZING AND AWESOME.". Then I started shaking my body all over, and scrunching up my face. She was looking at me a little wonderingly and curiously. I said "I'M SO PROUD AND PLEASED WITH YOU I'M ABOUT TO BURST BURST BURST WITH AMAZING JOY! HURRAH!!!!!!! I LOVE IT THAT YOU WERE ABLE TO STOP PUSHING PEOPLE. WAY TO GO!!!!"

She loved all this. Here's to BIG reactions to get more of what I want. Thank you, Bears, Samarhia, Tracey, Saeid, Jack, Kim, Kate, Caroline, William, Avak, Anita, Shelley, (WOW THIS LIST COULD GO ON AND ON!) all you super amazing beautiful SonRise people in my life. YOU ROCK ROCK ROCK ROCK ROCK!!!!!

Love is our resistance

This is my favorite of the 10 songs at the top of Billboards top rock songs right now:

Victoria

Google's web index seems to be tilted toward Canada over Australia, so that regularly when I'm searching for things in Melbourne, Victoria, I get very high search results located in Victoria, BC, Canada.

I like "wierd" people

Yesterday on the tram, there was a lady in her mid 20's isming a little bit--tapping on the window in a repetitive way, and doing little repetitive vocalisms to herself, but loud enough to hear and sound a little strange. I was watching her and wanting to join her. She got up and looked a bit distressed, and then she said quite loudly, addressing noone in particular "Where is Saint Kilda???" So I looked her in the eye and said "Just stay on this tram--St Kilda is the last stop on this line". She lit up with a huge beautiful smile and looked right back at me and said "Thank you *so* much!" Hooray!

Dinosaurs

"You may wonder why we find no bones from dinosaurs from this era, and rightly so. But keep in mind that dinosaurs don't actually have bones—the whole dinosaurs had bones thing is all an elaborate hoax planned for His own divine amusement. Real dinosaurs, as any enlightened paleontologist—or bone doctor, as they prefer to be called—will tell you, were able to stand erect by engorging selected muscles with blood, making the once flaccid limb rigid. By alternating which muscles were engorged in the correct sequence, a very effective locomotion and rudimentary skeletal structure was achieved. Perverted readers may recognize that this mechanism is similar to what happens in the male penis. Dinosaurs were, in essence, not much more than a massive collection of penises (penii) under a thick skin. While very few accurate descriptions of these creatures have existed into present times, we can be pleased to learn that awareness of them has propagated generationally in our culture. Most men don't even realize that when they exaggerate the size of their penis—referring to it as "monstrous" or "dinosaurlike"—they are helping to keep alive the hidden truth of the strange and horny beasts

we know as dinosaurs."

~From "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster; A Condensed History of the World"

summary justice, American style

ala Eric Holder.

So much for Mr. Vincent's signature. (yeah, ok, that signature is already pretty much toast anyway.)

Learned lately:

There is a big difference between wanting something and being unhappy if I don't have it or get it.

What I want right now

I want someone or several someones to help pay the US$3500 that it's costing to send Megan to this conference in the United States in May.

In the Beginning

In the Beginning was the Word,

And the Word was "Arrrgh!"

-Piraticus 13:7

(from the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Copyright 2006 Bobby Henderson. All rights reserved. etc. etc.)

un-angry injection--Would you take it? why or why not?

A thought experiment from Raun Kaufman.

Close your eyes, and imagine for a few moments that a substance has been invented which comes as an injection, and prevents you ever getting angry for the rest of your life. The shot is totally safe, it's free, and you only need to get it once, and you will simply be incapable of feeling anger for the rest of your life.

Would you take it?

Why or why not?

See: http://www.option.org/media.php?mediatype=video&mediaid=1&part=0

JUNGLE GIRL

6 year old C. walked into the kitchen last night without a stitch of clothing, preceded by her big voiced announcement "NOW PRESENTING .... JUNGLE GIRL!!!!!!"

Afterwards she explained in a smaller voice "Jungle people are naked."

From whence? and where? and who?

From where do the weapons come--the ones which kill all the people who die due to the use of weapons?

How many people, among the ~180,000 who die each day, are killed by weapons of warfare?

Who gets the money spent on these weapons? And who spends it?

Who builds the weapons? And where are they built? And how much does the building of them prop up or contribute to the local economy, in those places? And do they/we realize this, or have answers to any of these questions?

prayers/good thoughts/etc. requested

My father is going under general anesthesia ~12 hours from now (1:30 PM GMT Monday) for total right shoulder replacement. He has a standing do not resuscitate order, and various other health problems, all of which together makes me slightly apprehensive. Please send prayers/good thoughts/etc. his way, if you are willing to. His name is Ben. Thank you =)