Aloe Vera and the Grace of the Sun

by Robert L. Gisel

 To sunscreen or not to sunscreen, says someone pretending Shakespeare, his bare skin turning to crispy critter as he bakes in the sun.

 Some days ago, it must have been a bad hair day, I put no Infinite Aloe on my face against the sun which showed no mercy. My experience has been that when my skin, which tends on the white side, (I'm a red head, imagine that) is not covered with aloe vera before exposure to the sun there will be blood, and I do mean sunburned.

 Since applying Infinite Aloe before going out I haven't gotten sunburned, at all. The experience of a few days ago reminds me of why I do this.

 Preventing sunburn with aloe vera is a personal success story, not a claim, lest we invoke the wrath of the mightiest of authorities, The FDA. Nevertheless the difference for me has been so dramatic that there has to be a technical explanation for this.

 I'm told you can find anything on the Internet, but that hasn't entirely been the case here, what with my limited reach thwarted by overactive security settings. There is some valid support for the idea of this amount of sun protection from aloe vera, even though I have yet to find any clinical studies that forward the premise so objectively viewed. Besides that, nothing gets cured no ways, FDA take note we said that.

What Does Sunscreen Do?

 There are 3 basic actions of sunscreen:

absorb ultraviolet (with organic chemical compounds)

absorb or reflect and scatter ultraviolet light (using inorganic particulates)

absorb light (using organic particulates).

 Sunblock basically has more opaque particulates so as to block out everything. Is that the theme to Goldfinger playing in the background?

 In other words sunscreen and sunblock seek to modify the presence of solar rays before they sink into the skin and burn you to a crisp. It is like wearing a bullet proof vest. But there is a downside.

The Shortcomings of Sunscreen

 Sunscreen with an SPF rating inhibits most all of the vitamin D production of the skin. The irony of this is that there are indications that deficiency in vitamin D may lead to cancer, without adequate supplements to offset the deficiency. Yet 10 to 15 minutes in the sun without sunscreen twice a week is enough produce adequate vitamin D3.

 Sunburn is caused by ultraviolet radiation, specifically by UVB, which is blocked by sunscreen thus preventing sunburn and DNA damage. Sunscreens do not block UVA, but UVA does not cause sunburn, it just destroys vitamin A. Ironically, sunscreens are meant to prevent some forms of cancer, carcinogens, by blocking UVB, but UVA, not suppressed by sunscreens, increases risk of another cancer, melanoma, by indirectly damaging DNA and promoting free radicals and oxidation of the skin.

 Sunblock is a type of sunscreen that keeps out both UVA and UVB. A problem arises with some sunscreens that erroneously claim to be a sunblock. Also, when all sunshine is banished from the skin and the result is vitamin D deficiency.

 The radiation of the sun's rays can also cause mutation of DNA, or, to oversimplify, the makings of skin diseases and cancer. If you don't want to become a Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein, become a vampire, only come out at night, and stay away from auditions.

The Solution for Sunscreening

 Consider this alternative: the highly nutritional and healing properties of Aloe Barbadensis Miller eliminates skin mutations and improper cellular growth. It is so rich in anti-oxidants and health promoting vitamins its medicinal properties have been renown for many thousands of years. Per the wall pictures in ancient Egyptian Temples it was grown on the banks of the Nile and sold at Rite Aide.

 Simply put, sunburn is oxidized skin. Aloe vera is very high in anti-oxidants and fights harmful free radicals. It is also high in the nutrients needed to feed the skin to grow in a healthy state. So not only does aloe vera combat harmful oxidation it supplies the vitamins that will be destroyed or depleted in the skin with the use of sun screens.

 It is not determined if using a good source of aloe such as Infinite Aloe will eliminate any need for sunscreen. If you do use sunscreen put Infinite Aloe on first, it will absorb into the skin, and the sun lotion over that.

 A properly fed body is a healthy body. The last place in the body to receive nutrition is the skin. Feeding the skin with penetrating aloe vera provides the nutrients needed for healthy skin, even under the sun. Then you don't have to be a stay-at-home hermit crab, or worse yet, become a vampire, nights only.

[]

See my Infinite Aloe web site.

Also see this post: Aloe and Other Stuff

HOME

[]

End of the World Lost In Translation

by Robert L. Gisel

 The world is not all bad evidently, as the end of the world has not occurred, and there has not been some great cataclysm as of this day 21 May, 2011.

 This suggests something has been lost in translation or in the millennium of misinterpretation. The word "apocalypse" comes from the ancient Greek word meaning "revelation" or "to uncover". It refers to a moment of disclosure or enlightenment. I'm sure the end of the world would come as a great surprise, but that is not the original meaning of that word from the times of which the tale evidently begins.

 Mankind is certainly due for an enlightenment. Just as the "mob mentally" can telepath through a group, in the rush of a crowd from fire or a mob in a riot or the group enthusiasm of a gathering beseeched with great news, so could mankind spontaneously arrive at a cosmic consciousness, and enlightenment. I second that motion.

 That "The Apocalypse" got heralded as the event of great destruction and cataclysmic events has to do with Jewish and Christian writings of Apocalypse, this work being of unknown genesis and various interpretations of its poetic rendition. For one, what survives in the writings of the Bible is not necessarily the writings before its compilation and editing in 397 AD, when the "official" Bible was adopted. Secondly, which John is said to have written it, what was said, as well the date of its origin and its prophetic value is in thorough dispute. In other words, it doesn't withstand the acid test. Thank you very much Harold Camping of the Calvary Bible Church, your opinion has been noted.

 The Mayan civilization, quite apart from the Christian or Jewish lines on this, had their own prediction of a time of great celebration of the ending of a cycle, which has been misinterpreted as "the end of the world". Not what they had in mind.

 This Mayan "apocolypse" is now speculated to be a calendar date of the winter solstice 21 December, 2012, when once in about every 26,000 years the sun will be directly between the center of the galaxy and the earth, i.e., the end of a 26,000 year Mayan calendar cycle. A solar "eclipse" of the center of the galaxy, so to speak, isn't the end of the world by any means, in spite of all interpretations to the contrary.

 Whatever the academic or theological or astrological postulate on this mythical event, today is not, by empirical observation, the day. So would someone please take down the billboard on Fountain Boulevard which proclaims the end of the world on today's date? Whatever they are selling, we're not buying it.

[]

Aloe And Other Stuff

by Robert L. Gisel

"Four vegetables are indispensable for the well being of man:

Wheat, the grape, the olive and aloe.

The first nourishes him,

the second raises his spirit,

The third brings him harmony,

and the fourth cures him."

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

  Does anyone but me find it intensely interesting that some common household items of today, like wheat, olives, grapes and aloe, have been the same regularly used items of yesteryear? We're talking about way back, surprising millennium, where we are fortunate enough to have recovered a record of it. How far back these common place items really go is a preponderance for archeologists and Indiana Jones. For the rest of us it could be good food for thought.

  Aloe, for instance, goes back at least 5,000 years and more likely 10,000. Pictures of aloe have been found on ancient Egyptian temple walls. That could take it back 8 to 12 thousand years ago. There are references to Cleopatra beautifying with aloe and Alexander the Great conquering territories of aloe fields for this herbal medicine to heal and relieve pain in his warring troops. Not some of the oldest references to aloe, but household names, like Elvis, John Wayne and John Travolta.

  Aloe was possibly not used in embalming, as is said in some places; it doesn't show up in descriptions made of the actual procedure and recipe by which Egyptians made mummies. The Biblical reference to Jesus’ body being covered in myrrh and aloe doesn't specifically relate it to embalming. These both also have medicinal healing applications and, while some scholars take variance with the actual outcome of that event, there were large amounts of aloe and myrrh brought in when Jesus’ body was removed from the cross. Also, aloe and myrrh were said to be among the gifts of the three wise men at his birth, obviously intended for miraculous life. Leaving that debate, 2 millennia ago is still a rather late date for aloe.

  Of the other indispensible vegetables we know the grape goes back that far, 8-10,000 years, and one can suspect that includes olives. Hollywood has made sure their movies of ancient times have grapes on their sets lest we forget that thousands of years ago opulence and grapes went together. Have to keep that stereotyped image to support the history books that would have us believe stylized versions of the past. However, in a Biblical reference to grapes Noah is said to have grown them on his farm (Genesis 9:20-21). That would date this chosen fruit to before the great flood, whenever that was.

  Isn't folk lore a wonderful thing? That my avocado plants could be the subject of history thousands of years from now is a fascinating supposition, a new volume of folklore but for the fact that, unless the Internet crashes, you'll be able to read of it here, first hand.

  Wheat? But of course; how else could you break bread with the apostles. The Sumerians are said to have been "foraging for grains" 8,000 years ago, that we know of. Apparently International Harvester wasn't yet marketing combines. Still, in some respects society is the same old same old it has been for thousands of years, or could we say tens of thousands. Makes one wonder.

  This reference to aloe for the medicine cabinet in the domas is fascinating, though. A long time ago medicines were naturally grown foliage, in contrast to our chemically derived medicines of today. It is dubious that the modern chemical contraptions, regardless how touted their said medicinal benefits, are any better than nature's fare. They are, evidently, more marketable, and believed to be good for profits. Okay to make a profit, not okay to foist off foreign chemicals that the body cannot fully assimilate as do the real medicines provided by nature.

  The quote at the top from Christopher was pulled off the Infinite Aloe blog post from whence my mind was set to thinking. Thinking; one of the few things probably not remediated by aloe.

[]

Visit my Infinite Aloe Site

[]

HOME

[]

How Good Is Your Movie One-Liner?

by Robert L. Gisel

 To write and sell a movie it has to be a great story idea you can tantalizingly tell about in a sentence. Great is not something you luck into or because you are uniquely one of the outstanding geniuses. It is simple, and it is learnable.

 To know what you are doing, if you want to write a great movie that embroils the audience, you must grasp the concept of the one-liner. Furthermore, to sell it to another, you must begin with a well defined story line that can be summed up in literally one or two sentences. That is the "one-liner" as it is called in the industry. This is so outrageously simple that when you have learned the knack of it you can rattle off great story lines at will.

 The successful screenplay has much conflict to embroil the audience. This might be the oppositional gap between the good and the evil or the right and the wrong of the protagonist and antagonist. Simply a wide divergence in the main character himself or herself can cause conflict in its incongruity and unique paradox. The more diverse, the more unexpected, sardonic or contrary, all believably so, the more potentially explosive the plot. If you can't state the irony and theatrical appeal in a few sentences you need to rethink the story.

 It isn't just opposites or contrariness of personnel. It is some paradoxical circumstance one wouldn't expect, haven't heard of before, somehow made credible by the characters and their personal drama. You'll see this in all the best movies.

 I'll make up an example. A scandalous banker, now jobless in a crashed economy, gets a job peddling hot dogs from a push cart. That is sardonic. Even more ironical, it is in his own financial district where he is known by everybody, where nobody but him desires him to be back on top. Or this incongruity for a comedy: he is a white man, bank President, fired for mis-managed loans, and the sales territory he is assigned on his new job for a moving company is in foreclosure haven Harlem.

 You should be able to reduce your spec screenplay to an antiphrasis stated in a line or several. A script that won't so reduce is probably flat or deficient in its plot or story lines and not a sellable work. Having a poignant one-liner the movie will practically write itself.

 That is really the simplicity of the one-liner. When you have it it rings. It grabs your interest.

 It says the story is unique and the description makes you want to see it. You can write a whole story from this cutting statement. Assuming one has craftsmanship, a studied skill, and imaginative rendition, which anyone can practice, one can develop a very good script package from the great one-liner . Even more, you can sell it in one sentence, which you must.

 When the Producer who could make your movie asks what it is about you had very well better be able to tell him, now, with no fluster, and no ramble through scenes of the movie. This ultra condensed description actually demonstrates in a moment if you have a great story idea or not. One can see the strength of his own screenplay, but this is vitally necessary to pitch your movie to a potential buyer or producer.

 Practice describing great movies you have seen in this way. Then make up some of your own.

 Here is how I would one-line these movies:

A homeless, social misfit, super hero who has been thrown in jail by society for his destructive offenses must be asked by their Mayor to save the town from destruction. (Hancock)

A man zapped by a UFO turns on unusually perceptive extra-sensory powers and turns off all his friends who are freaked out by his abnormal feats, while he attracts unscrupulous government people who want to own his abilities. (Phenomena)

Twins from a biological experiment reunite but have turned out to be complete opposites physically and morally. (Twins)

A real Angel with wings gets his last sabbatical in an Earth body and is bent on having some rogue and rowdy Earth fun, but he's not here to touch any lives or perform any miracles. (Michael)

A man and his wife, unbeknown to the each other, are each secret agent assassins who become deadly enemies when they get opposing assignments. (Mr. & Mrs. Smith).

 Wouldn't you want to see any of these movies only on the strength of the one-liner? Even without knowing the A-List actors who play the leads?

 See these one-liners as brief, to-the-point statements of the real irony of the movie that make it a unique conceptual package.

 Get it? Go to it.

[]

The Days Fly By

by Robert L. Gisel

A relevant republish.

 Here it is at the end of 2010. Unbelievable. Seems like only yesterday it was Y2K and we were prepping for "the end of the world". Something happened but it wasn't that. Let's re-visit that time.

 Extra stores and canned goods were bought in a hurry by flocks of people. We got together our survival bags and set them out just in case we had to cut and run. When the day approaches all we can do is wait out the crash of the computers and rampage in the streets and looting of the grocery stores, that never came. Wow.

 The 30 foot billboard down the street from me had all month proclaimed the end of the world. I don't know product they were promoting but it was a failed product launch.

 Now it is all of ten years hence, ten years. The known, confronted, never turns out that bad. Somehow we manage to create a better eventuality. Only when an intended act is hidden from us like the cause of the apocalypse of 911 is there any huge drama, and even then we bounce back from it in good order. We are very resilient people.

 Still we don't have to be the effect of whatever life deals out. We each have a say in the matter, in the broad view of things.

 It has been called many things, elan vital, life force, spiritual energy, vital spark and qi; the caustion we all have and some invoke more than others is a much sought property. Yoda had the line "Do or do not. There is no try." to which I paraphrase, do now or do not, there is no wait. Action of any kind is the best leverage.

 Time, as it turns out, is very subject to one's consideration. With "too little" it becomes compressed and can be excruciating. With "too much" one dies of boredom. Time, passage of, and events, occurance of, are given substance by life's contemplation.

 Life reigns. Life force is a real thing, in spite of its invisibility. You can be a sight-seer and just go along for the ride. Or you can take pro-active stance (that's what they call it these days, pro-active) and command it. You have to go for it with gusto.

 So, use the force, Luke.

[]

Read All My Blogs:

 WhoWouldWrite.blogspot.com

OnceAnAlaskan.blogspot.com

FavoringLife.blogspot.com

ThinkTankMan.blogspot.com

LimitlessEnergy.blogspot.com

RightsFreedomsandRights.blogspot.com

DesignerGeodesics.blogspot.com

FreshAlaskanAir.blogspot.com

[]

Refudiate Hits The Jackpot

by Robert L. Gisel

 As the Sarah Palin foo-pah "refudiate" hit the big numbers on 19 July, 2010 it surprises me I only see it just now. Whether the word was errant, coined, portmanteau, or revivified, the word went so viral if it could have been put in a nuclear reactor it would have powered the city for weeks.

 Having put an essentially made-up word on Twitter it has now seen about every corner of the web. Whether it ever was a word or not scholastic acclaim guarantees its place in history.

 Merriam Webster pronounced it was not a word, but when it got so many hits recanted and declared it the word of the summer. The New Oxford American Dictionary made it the word of the year. Wikipedia cut to the chase and made it officially a word by listing it in its Wiktionary.

 It has been 4 months now and yet it pulls up as the "27th most popular search term in the past hour". A continuous uninterrupted run of listings on Sarah Palin's "refudiate" goes on for 77 pages of Google search, and that does not include the possible duplicates and similar postings. There is no competition for the word refudiate, still, the total listing of search items is 2,540,000.

 I'm just amazed at how viral one word can be when attributed to a well known personage.

I refudiate that.
I am refudiating it.

I will be refudiating it even more.

We refudiated it before.

It shall have been refudiated.

It is refudiable.

The refudity is plain.

There is so much refudiation going on.

Refuditory actions can be troublesome.

Politics is full of refudiocelatory action.

 Thank you Sarah Palin.

[]

HOME:

Scroll the blog.

Who's On First?

The following was passed to me, written by an unknown author. Is worth passing on.



Two Tough Questions

Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.


Question 2:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates. Who would you vote for?


Candidate A.

Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist. He ' s had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.


Candidate B.

He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon , used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.


Candidate C

He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, does not smoke, drinks an occasional beer and has never cheated on his wife.



Which of these candidates would be our choice?



Decide first... no peeking, then scroll down for the response.









Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.




And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question:

If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.



Pretty interesting isn’t it? Makes a person think before judging someone.

Wait till you see the end of this note! Keep reading..


Remember:

Amateurs...built the ark.
Professionals. ..built the Titanic.


And Finally, can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
* 3 have done time for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year...



Can you guess which organization this is?



Give up yet?







It ' s the 535 members of the United States Congress.

The same group that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.


MY BLOGS:

WhoWouldWrite.blogspot.com

OnceAnAlaskan.blogspot.com

FavoringLife.blogspot.com

ThinkTankMan.blogspot.com

LimitlessEnergy.blogspot.com

RightsFreedomsandRights.blogspot.com

DesignerGeodesics.blogspot.com