Taomeow

Armenia does coffee better. Not just better than here, but better than anywhere. Azerbaijan makes the best grapes and some of the best melons, and also top quality pot. Austria does chestnuts roasting on an open fire -- in the streets in winter. They warm up your hands and your soul. Bermuda does racial harmony better. And environmental protection. And tiny singing frogs that go "3D! 3D!" from dusk to dawn. And cats -- free cats, many cats, happy cats, cats without owners who have enough to eat because the ecology provides and people contribute. The happiest healthiest cats ever, and they are everywhere. And wild chickens that can fly (up a tree) and fight like eagles and are also happy and free. Bermuda does pretty much everything better than nearly anyone else, which is why you can't immigrate -- unless you are really, really stinking rich. Well shacks to you Bermuda. Green fucking grapes. Belarus has the blondest natural blondes in all age groups, and children look positively angelic. Also, they grow the best tasting potatoes. Canada does commuting to work better -- some people ice skate to their place of business! China has the safest vibe. And the best of many other things. Public restrooms are much worse though, but I think they are one campaign away from changing that. They build 100 new airports every year after all (sic). Georgia makes the best shish kabob, and in general their traditional cuisine is amazing. Italy does domestic violence better. They just yell their heads off, break plates, and occasionally furniture, then promptly kiss and make up. Italy also does style far, far better, and makes the best-dressed men, also the best shoes and the best-fitting clothes far as I'm concerned. Israel makes a better Saturday scene with girls on a weekend leave from the army going to parties with their firearms across clubbing outfits (they are not allowed to leave their weapons unattended). Also far, far better management of water than anywhere else. And the best coral reefs -- in the Red sea. Latvia grows the best black, red and white currants, and makes the best tasting dairy. Lithuania has the best wild strawberries and some of the best wild mushrooms, and smells of pine. Peru makes the best ayahuasca and the best vegetalista shamans. Puerto Rico does the color and temperature of the ocean better. Russia makes the best poetry, hands down. And for a couple of centuries (at least) has been producing a small but significant subclass of people, known as the "intelligentsia," who can be approximately described as a mix of a gentleman/woman but without the superficiality of just manners and no substance; scholar; and in the best classical case, kindness and integrity incarnate. To be a member of this tiny class, you have to possess all of the above -- manners, erudition, some talent, moral character, ethical behavior, and a compassionate vibe. To merely be "intelligent" does not begin to touch it. Ukraine has the best most fertile black soil, so pretty much everything grown there tastes better than anywhere else. Currently this soil is being bought by Sweden at something like a buck a ton. (During WWII the Germans, while occupying Ukraine, dug up, loaded on trains, and transported to Germany hundreds of thousands of tons of this amazing soil.) It's a wonderful world...

There's also methods to squash emerging memories with suggestions that they are false. This happened to me. I had memories, then I was conditioned to believe they were false, and then I was unconditioned and remember again. The memory of secret and malicious groups abusing children in this-here consensus reality being merely a manifestation of variously induced or acquired false memories is a false one. If you have it, all it means is that it has been painstakingly implanted. This world is set up, with great care, to keep the practice of sacrifice of children, on which it is founded and functions, secret from the vast majority and to condition this majority to summarily pooh-pooh any information of such events. That's the nature of the beast in whose jaws you let millions of children suffer and perish because you believe the beast is their false memory.

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“Birds flying high above the retreating army! Why do you suddenly turn and head toward our enemy, contrary to the clouds? We are not yet defeated, are we? True, we are scattered, but we still have some energy.” “Because your numbers diminish. You are less fit to listen to our songs. You are no more an audience. Vultures swoop in to replace us, and Valkyries. And the eastern wind slams the fir horizons like jagged accordions.” “Cuneiform of the beaks! Explosions that sprout a palm tree! Your tunes will be blown out of the sky, too, by the screaming westerly. We commit them to memory, which is a larger country. Nobody knows the future, but there is always yesterday.” “Ye-ah! but our life span’s shorter. There is no tomb or pyre for our kind, but chamomile, clover, chicory, thyme. Your valedictory runs ‘Fire! fire! fire!’ We are less comprehensible. That’s why we need a victory.” -- Joseph Brodsky

This close, only 2,000 years ago, when they were (as some assert) joined to form the Star of Bethlehem. They are not going to look as the double star, according to the version I've read and will check shortly, but as one star of exceptional brightness. Look to the west-northwest, right after it gets dark, and for the next 2 hours -- whereupon they set.

It's mostly psychological traits, and they seem to be different in BBs and BOs. BBs adapt to their environment, are very much focused on fitting in a community, accepting its values, following the rules, and consistently seek conformity, harmony, peace. What is sacrificed toward these goals may be big or small, important or unimportant, whimsical or noble, but whatever it is, it will get sacrificed toward what they see as a greater good -- playing with, and for, the team, no matter what the team is after. Social success, likewise, is very important to them -- they are ambitious, work hard, are talented, and often reap the fruits of applying themselves to their task that can be quite sweet. In trouble, under stress, "uncultivated" BBs implode, and their health suffers. Now BOs are revolutionary material. Nonconformists, rebels, but never "rebels without a clue" -- they integrate information like there's no tomorrow and often arrive at unexpected, precarious, unpopular, but usually well-justified conclusions -- and make their lives harder in the process. Talents, in sciences, arts and humanities alike, are widespread, but success is more elusive for BOs, because they tend to choose justice and truth over peace and quiet, perfection over passability, and being true to themselves over conforming and fitting in. In trouble, under stress, "uncultivated" BOs explode, and their relationships suffer. Ring any bells so far?

It means many things, but if the Shroud of Turin is not a fake, it also means that you are the same rare blood type as Jesus. And that Darwin had nothing whatsoever to do with your coming into existence, since AB is not a product of natural selection, adaptation to environment, evolution or any of that jazz. AB is the outcome of human migrations and consequent hybridization -- cross breeding of two breeds of the same genus, As with Bs. Have you ever tried any of these?

Oh, sorry I didn't specify, I meant the recessive blood type gene. Sometimes you can figure out what it is if you know the blood types of your parents. That's because we inherit 2 blood type genes, one from each parent, and what we inherit is not necessarily their dominant one -- so, to be a particular blood type, you have four options: get mom's dominant gene and dad's dominant, get mom's dominant and dad's recessive, get two recessive, get dad's dominant and mom's recessive. You wind up with a pair that will fight it out for dominance as follows: A or B always win against O; A and B can't win against each other, so if you get A and B, you will be an AB, with both genes sharing dominance. To be an O, you need to get two Os. But then a B can be a BB or a BO, and an A, accordingly, an AA or an AO. The second one being recessive. So, in my case, I know my recessive gene because my parents are an O and a B, which means I couldn't get anything but an O gene from the O parent, which means that I'm a B with a recessive O. However, if my parents were an A and a B, or an A and an AB, or a B and an AB, I would be unable to tell if my recessive gene is an O or a B, only that it can't be A if I'm a B. It's not complicated, just a bit confusing without the habit of sorting those genes out -- I do have the habit, because I've discovered that there's quite a lot you can know about someone's traits from their blood type, and four times as much if you also know their recessive blood type gene. (In person I can tell, in 9 cases out of 10.) Oh, and about the taller than average bit -- this is indeed uncanny, but it's a statistical fact: Bs are an average of 4 inches taller than the population they live among, regardless of race or nationality. I.e. American Bs tend to be taller by on average that much than American non-Bs, and Japanese Bs are taller than Japanese non-Bs, and race, nationality, or anything else biological is not a factor. So, welcome to the mysteries of epigenetics. Here's my guess why: Historically nomadic, Bs used to "outgrow their environment" every time they migrated -- so the message to "outgrow your environment" had to be applied to any new environment they found themselves in. Well, our civilized environment is people -- other people -- many people, that's our chief milieu. Somehow "outgrow your environment" commanded in the language of epigenetics gets translated into the meta-language of the whole organism (aka its spirit) literally, as "outgrow it physically." So we grow taller than our environment, on average. The disproportionate numbers of self-made millionaires may have their roots in the same "semantic fuzziness" of translating the overall message regarding what the environment's demands are today, under current conditions. And as I said earlier, Bs are the ones who respond to current, right-now conditions much faster, adapt to what's new rather than what they're used to adapting to (that's because NO is faster than cortisol and even adrenaline and gears the whole system to immediacy -- whether actual or relative. Our stress processing is neither preemptive as it Os nor post-factum as in As -- it's "right now," we run on gas and "now" is the only time we can use it. However, with a recessive O, the plot might thicken...) As for the bright blue jacket and yellow boots, that was also epigenetics.

Thank you for the story, Mnemonist. Yes, this is classic. Hardly anyone wants to become a shaman willingly (except for some excitable people who don't have the calling and don't know what's involved -- they only see the glory part, the power part, and seldom the heartbreaking compassion part, the self-sacrifice, the dangers from every realm, and so on.) Shamans have been alternatively demonized and romanticized in modern times, but seldom understood. And you're right that everyone is different -- some people have to accept the call or die, others are given a choice, still others, a quest to determine if they qualify. And some lose the spirits' interest -- the spirits, too, change their mind. And some negotiate a deal. "I won't do it, but I will do such and such instead." "OK, accepted, this is the price to pay -- pay up." OK. Paid in full. No more spiritual obligations -- or opportunities. It all depends... One has to step very carefully making decisions in these matters. One thing I know is that natural born shamans who lost the power or bailed out in order to have a "normal life" are never happy in this normal life. It just doesn't fit -- they can make it fit externally, but internally, no. Anyway... this is a huge subject, don't let me ramble. I'm glad to hear you're doing better.

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Thank you. I haven't been to Buryatia but close enough -- Altai -- though only as a child. Knew some interesting people from the area... Know a bit about the Buryat shamanic tradition, as well as their strong ties with Tibet. And a less obvious but most fascinating link to proto-taoism. Looks like you and your parents were very wise to seek help there. Of course now that shamanism is experiencing a revival in Siberia, one has to watch out for quacks jumping on the bandwagon... but the real ancient tradition never disappeared even if it went underground for a long time. If you were told that you're having a shamanic syndrome, this is basically something that is resolved in the spirit world, and usually only upon accepting the choice made by the spirits. Do you think you did?.. Really interesting, I hope you ride it out successfully.

Ah, Ulan-Ude! A Buryat shamanka! This rings such a poignant bell... Do you mind sharing her name if it's not a secret?

Me too. Let me guess... you are somewhat taller than average, and you wear a bright blue jacket and yellow boots. If you know your recessive gene, I will be able to tell you more.

Stomachache is not a normal side effect of coffee -- but all non-organic crops are heavily sprayed, so it may be a pesticide problem. Another realistic possibility -- coffee served in coffee shops has a rampant mold problem, so you may be reacting to mytotoxins rather than coffee. I feel like crap after even one cup of Starbucks which I will only drink in emergency -- normally I make my own and make sure it's high quality. (There's much about coffee quality and its importance in this thread.) My home brewed coffee is way stronger than Starbucks and I drink two cups every morning each of which is perhaps equivalent to three Starbucks cups in strength -- I've been living like that since I was 15, all my life to date, and yet a coffee shop cup of coffee can mess me up, so I'm assuming it's not coffee, it's what's IN their coffee. As for sensitivity to coffee proper, it does take about two weeks of regular consumption to go away in most people, and for everyone there's a "baseline" amount that they can drink with no problem -- I will get side effects if I overstep my own boundaries even after all these years. They are different for different people, some are way more sensitive than others, but for everybody it's dose dependent, and the dose is strictly individual. Once you've determined that two cups is too much for you, but one is fine (provided it's good coffee, like I said), stick to one unless at some point you find that there's no adverse effects from that whatsoever and want to try to have a second. I wouldn't fall for refills -- it's too much in one go, especially considering I wouldn't drink public coffee anyway except when I had no chance to make my own. My two morning cups are back to back, but if I want a third, I will drink it much later in the day (though not too late -- the cut-off time is also individual, mine is about 3 pm and if I drink it later, it will affect my sleep.) The bad rap around coffee is extensive and has been proven false on numerous occasions but still perseveres -- that's the nature of a "poisoned well fallacy." It has been shown time and again that drinking high quality coffee is one of the healthiest habits a human being can acquire, similar to a habit of eating fresh fruit and vegetables in its antioxidant value (I think the info is up there in the thread somewhere), preventive of a host of disorders and protective for the brain. As with any very active substance, you need to mind the dose though. Too much of the good thing is not good. And the only real dangers it poses are related to contaminations (chemicals and molds), stale overburned condition, or using it as a liquid candy delivery system as many people in this country do, either syrupy with natural or toxic with artificial sweeteners and the kind of dairy that has been molested into a poisonous cocktail of inedibles. Avoid all of the above, and you'll find that coffee is a true friend, not a treacherous one that will stab you in the back or in the adrenals or what-not.

Statistics I presume? is how you made your fortune?

Hi Mnemonist, I would suggest visiting a good acupuncturist. Many pressure-in-the-head problems respond pretty well -- but if there's no improvement, I would get a medical check-up to exclude anything serious. Second the non-practicing anything while this is going on -- except one qigong move known as Beating The Heavenly Drum. Your symptoms/lifestyle seem to point to qi getting "stuck" in the head and having trouble circulating -- the move I'm talking about is safe for specifically this problem. My taiji teacher often asked the class to perform it at the end of the practice in order to move any stray qi down and away from the head. Look it up -- if you can't find a demo, I'll describe it. Good luck!

It depends on how much you know about it -- e.g. about haptens that can make or break a relationship (airborne and sexually transmitted fragments of your own antigen if you're an A, B or AB), and whether you're planning to kill any Os with a transfusion of your blood or be made violently sick by getting it from an A donor, and whether you are getting a job interview in Japan where they are more likely than not to hire you or not depending on whether your blood type matches the "hamony" they are looking to create or introduces an "imbalance" into the team. And a few other odds and ends, like specific risk of certain disease and a very low one for some others. And, yes, by itself it tells you nothing about your best food choices -- but combined with a far more extensive pool of linked metabolic traits, the awareness gives you a bit of an extra idea of who you are and what to expect of yourself. Know thyself, you know. It's really a fascinating area of research, too bad D'Adamo and clones profaned it so badly.

And thoroughbred Arabian horses also developed lactose tolerance into adulthood, since their traditional diet of many centuries is dates and milk -- provided by humans toward top racing performance. Horses have eight blood types, of which one is the same as in about 45% of humans -- A, and the rest are letter-coded C, D, K, P, Q, U, and T. I wonder who's been breeding us and toward what goal.

Bs are 9% of the population and 40% of self-made millionaires. Welcome to the B club! Whatever else D'Adamo got wrong (nearly everything, though he's right about food lectins agglutinating blood -- but very wrong about their ability to discriminate between different blood type antigens when doing this, the world's leading lectinologists assert they don't discriminate at all, an agglutinin is an equal opportunity agglutinin, with a few minor herbal exceptions) -- as I was saying, one thing he did get right. He worships Bs. (Even though he himself is an A.) The reason Bs get away with things Os and As don't diet-wise is something else and far more complex. The secret is not their N-acetyl-galactosamine for pattern recognition machinery on the surface of the blood cell, but the fact that blood type is not inherited in isolation -- we inherit the particular antigen (or its O type absence) in conjunction with/linked to hundreds of other traits. And some of these (or, most likely, a combo of a whole bunch) do play a part in what we can or can't eat with impunity. E.g., we have vastly different stress-mediating mechanisms that are a linked inherited trait with our blood type! As go cortisol, Os go adrenaline, but Bs go NO (nitrous oxide). A versatile though precarious balancing act that makes Bs both more and less adaptable to stress -- which is a paradox but there we have it: we can do it better, but we suffer from doing it more. However, when it comes to diet, this fast-metabolic-track adaptability pays off -- food, generally, does not make or break our health, and one kind of stress we withstand without losing happiness is dietary. But a lousy relationship, social problems, etc., can do a B in where an A or an O will only see a challenge to take on or an obstacle to overcome. Dairy is indeed something Bs thrive on... unless they are Asian Bs and can't digest it at all. And it is predominantly an Asian blood type -- while elsewhere it's the minority of the population who have it (9% in North America and Western Europe), in parts of Asia it's the majority -- up to 40% in some of those parts! So, no, it's not the blood type that decides about dairy. But it is something that is linked to it -- something European Bs inherit but Asian Bs don't. Epigenetics...

Thank you very much, I'll explore.

Ack! The soy/grains lobby promoting the macrobiotic thing is way powerful. I used to be able to find all the info with ease 12 years ago when I quit the macrobiotics diet, which I had embarked on earlier (I've tried nearly everything on myself over the years, I don't ever discuss diets I haven't experimented with and have no frame of reference for comparing with other diets or no-diets.) I quit it when a distant relative who cured his cancer with another nutritional protocol got convinced that now he needs to go macrobiotics to prevent a recurrence, which he did -- and promptly died. That's when I read all the stories -- but it was 12x13 moons ago, and I don't seem to be able to find them anymore, soy/grains pushers must have wiped the slate clean. Of the facts still searchable, these are on wiki: Aveline Kushi died of cervical cancer. Her daughter died of breast cancer. Michio Kushi died of pancreatic cancer. George Oshawa died of a heart attack. I will certainly provide the articles I remember which I was referring to if I can retrieve them, so far no luck, but Von, I assure you I didn't make it up and didn't say what I said before verifying it for myself. I'll try again when I have the time. Incidentally, Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez in New York, practiioner of one of the world's most successful alternative anticancer protocols (and THE most successful, whether on mainstream or alternative scene, in combatting pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest and resistant to pretty much any treatment or diet ever tried on it), asserts that his lymphoma patients specifically often come from a macrobiotics dietary history. I found this old email when trying to track down the info in response to your inquiry -- might be of interest while I keep trying: > According to Dr. Gonzalez, macrobiotics is not only non-efficient with > lymphoma but is actually a type of diet that can provoke it. I tend > to agree, for a number of reasons. In Japan, lymphoma is relatively > widespread, unlike many types of cancer that are common elsewhere but > rare among the Japanese. Macrobiotics is, to a great extent, an > effort to turn a Westerner Japanese, rather than a particularly useful > therapeutic diet. (Granted, the traditional Japanese way of eating > is, overall, a healthier deal than a "standard American diet," but the > latter will probably "take the cake" compared to almost anything else > out there.) Lymphoma, according to some recent studies, is suspected > to be partially or largely provoked by immune hypersensitization > caused or exacerbated by gluten-containing grains, which are freely > accepted in macrobiotics. The exclusion of meat is another gray area; > Dr. Kelley and Dr.Gonzalez both thought that it is the "natural meat > eater" who is more susceptible to lymphoma, but the relationship is of > correlation rather than causation. (In other words, the need for red > meat, the adverse effects of certain grains, and the "jumpy," > overexcitable immune system may be part of the same package in people > with lymphomas; it seems to be more common in people who do eat meat, > but people who don't are perhaps different enough metabolically to > begin with to be less attracted to meat. Plus the unhealthy effects > of all non-organic meats on those who do eat them, a separate issue > altogether).

Shh... don't tell the Big Pharma -- or they will lobby to illegalize cooked food if they find out that it can interfere with their multi-trillion-dollar profits from insomnia drugs...

Sure, do share if you're up to it.

Pranic scanning sounds interesting. I've extensively used another method, applied kinesiology, which I learned years ago from a dissident MD in New York. I even designed a double blind placebo controlled study of this method at one point, aiming to convince a scientist/skeptic friend. Went to town preparing the kit -- having access to his funky stash of stuff, I managed to have him sample everything, from food and drink of his usual choice to trick objects like birth control pills, chemo drugs, arsenic, cat food, and pot. (the worst performer of them all was diet Pepsi, which he drinks a lot of every day.) The accuracy is extremely high -- in other cases I verified it by testing food items on people with known and documented allergies and intolerances. However, this method offers only a very generalized picture of what to seek and what to avoid. But I'm pretty sure it could blow a mind or two in people who have an idea in the head of what they "should" eat which their body doesn't buy -- it could give them a chance to find out what the body really thinks about their choices. As for the book -- make me write it and I will, 'tis the only way!

_/\_ I hate to argue, but... actually, Fire ascends and Wood expands and Water descends, and Earth rotates -- they did get 1/5 of it right, Metal doth contract. I wouldn't go to macrobiotics for the Wuxing theory. Or for anything else, but I'm not touching that poor dead horse with a 6-foot daikon... since members of its family are either dead of cancer, or of alcoholism, or indulge in wife-beating, or are gone to jail for nearly murdering an infant of the family with a diet-induced B-12 deficiency -- I've no business adding to their comeuppance. My very inquisitive friend was immediately kicked out of a macrobiotics class after she asked an innocent question: "If it's all about eating local seasonal foods, what are we doing with gomashio, tekka, umeboshi and shiso in North Carolina?.."