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 LIVING HAPPY     
UPLIFTING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING NEWS FOR OUR MIND, BODY,AND SPIRIT   

From Carole Kane


  Vol. 2  No. 16                                                   June 24, 2012

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in this issue
TV Commercials - In Sickness and in Health - by Carole Kane
The Sino-Baltic Communications Gap - by Dr. Brad Holway
Poetry: My Boy - by Carole Kane
Encounter With The Transcendent - by Leonard Berman
Inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi
Think a little, laugh a little

Dear Friends,

Carole Kane

Carole Kane 

M.A., N.C.C. ret.

Welcome to Living Happy,  a nice way to feel and be our best!   

 

This week we have a wonderful variety of things for you, beginning with "TV Commercials - In Sickness and in Health " - where I enjoy pointing out the plethora of "health" ads we are subjected to every day.  Have YOU bought into them?

 

 Next, Brad Holway describes a funny after-dinner conversation,  with two men mangling the language a bit.

 

The next item:  While cleaning out old files before I sold my house recently,  I came across a quickie "poem" about my son - and it's all true!  Even if it did happen umpteen years ago!  Enjoy "My Boy."

 

Then, we welcome Leonard Berman as a guest writer for Living Happy.  His article "Encounter With the Transcendent" may open your eyes to some new ideas and thoughts about life and the universe.  

 

Then there are lots of inspirational, funny, and varied little pieces for you. 

 

Happy reading!

   

Love, Carole XXX OOO

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TV Commercials - in Sickness and in Health                             By Carole Kane  

If you're like most of us, as soon as a commercial comes on the television, you start to channel-surf, looking for what else is on.  In the past, you could actually watch more than one complete show at the same time, flipping back and forth between commercials.  Somewhere along the line, they got wise to us - and now almost every channel airs their commercials at the same time;  we just can't get away from them (that's the time to walk around the house for five minutes).  

   

With the exception of a very few entertaining ads, we might begin to think that all of America suffers from halitosis, arthritis, obesity, allergies, incontinence, headache, sexual dysfunction, eczema, low energy, digestive disorders, discolored teeth, acid reflux, diabetes, constipation, diarrhea, varicose veins, depression, loose-fitting false teeth, insomnia, thin hair, and pain! pain!  pain!  What a sorry bunch we are! 

 

This media blitzing could make us think that we actually are unhealthy and must take a pill or medicine just to get through the day.  Have we bought into it?  A look in our medicine chest will prove this.  Don't we have antacids, pain killers, sleeping potions, cold remedies, laxatives, anti-laxatives, mouthwash, skin creams, six kinds of tooth whiteners, on and on?

 

Would you like to get off this stupid merry-go-round and live like the healthy, vibrant person you really are?  I thought so.  So here's a good way to start:

 

Exercise!  Sorry, but it's true.  Exercise can lower blood pressure and cholesterol, reverse Type II diabetes or at least lower the glucose numbers, counteract depression by producing endorphins, banish constipation, relieve arthritis pain (especially with water exercise), help with flexibility and balance as we age, relieve insomnia, help lose weight, and raise self-confidence immensely.

  

Add good nutrition to this picture, and the sky's the limit.  With the proper "fuel" and the proper "burning" of that fuel, our bodies will run without squeaks and funny noises for a lot longer.  Clear skin, shiny eyes, healthy hair, fresh breath - ours for the taking!  The icing on the cake (sorry!):  Get enough sleep!  When we exercise, this will happen.

 

Remember this:  For serious health problems we need to depend on our doctors and their prescriptions. But for day-to-day problems like those already mentioned, our bodies have their own built-in pharmacy.  While we sleep, it heals and repairs us.

 

What a disappointment for the media!

   

 - - Carole - -  

reprinted from Vol. I Number 11 

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The Sino-Baltic Communications Gap:  An Incident in Chicago

  By Dr. Brad Holway   

 

It was on a June night some eighteen or so years ago, in a pretty decent neighborhood Szechuan restaurant on Chicago's North Side.  I had just finished dining with some seven or eight other people, a rather motley crew that included one Lithuanian gentleman.

 

As would happen at the end of these family-style Chinese restaurant meals, the serving plates migrated toward the center of the table and the diners pushed their chairs backward to relax.  In those days, people still smoked in restaurants, so the smokers among us lit up their "apres-diner" cigarettes.  The waiter, used to the signs of a meal's ending, approached us and, in his heavily-accented English, asked "Ah yoo finish?"  

confused man

"Well, I'm almost Finnish", said the Lithuanian gent, adding "I'm a Litvak." 


The waiter gave him a perplexed look, as if he had spoken in Navajo, Swahili or Ancient Sanskrit, and walked away. 


Our Lithuanian dining companion, equally perplexed, commented "Obviously, the waiter knows very little about the Baltic States."

 

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Poetry Corner 

 

My Boy

By Carole Kane

 

Open up the oven door,

Find the boots you thought he wore.

 rain boots

Go to get a piece of bread

Find his smashed old lunch instead.

 

Sit upon some squishy clay -

Just another normal day.

 

clay shapes 

 

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Encounter With The Transcendent                                    By Leonard Berman 

 

I will always remember my first encounter with the transcendent.  Growing up in a crowded neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn, the only truly open space was the sky.  I know it was before I was an adolescent, and it happened one night up on the roof of the apartment building on Pitkin Avenue that I encountered the wonder of the universe and was touched by it.

 

But the two languages spoken in my shul were Hebrew and Yiddish, and I understood neither.  My religion gave me no clarity as to what I had experienced.  Perhaps I never knew there was anyone to ask about such feelings.  At that point, the only God concept I understood was a condemning God, that my mother called down upon me when I was bad.  It was not until college that I found a voice for what I experienced by reading transcendental poetry:   

     

transcendent sunset and ocean
bolstablog.wordpress.com
"And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."   
                                         - -W. Wordsworth


Many years would pass before I would learn that this concept was developed by a Jewish philosopher named Baruch Spinoza, and this "spirit" was named "Ayn Sof" by the Kabbalists.  The struggle to understand, that began on that roof top over sixty years ago, is finally being resolved emotionally and intellectually by giving myself permission to recognize that no one approach or answer contains all the truth; and that a fusion of many ideas has led me to a spiritually satisfying life.  And to seal the purchase, I have put my actions and my limited resources into activities that help me make a stronger connection with my people, and with my fellow citizens.  

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Inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi  

   

"Your beliefs become your thoughts;

 

Your thoughts become your words'

 

Your words become your actions; and

 

Your actions become your destiny."

 contributed by Maryann Hall   

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Think a Little, Laugh a Little
cows and hair dryer
The Usher
  

An elderly woman walked into church.

The friendly usher greeted her at the door  and helped her up the flight of steps.  

"Where would you like to sit?" he asked politely.  

"The front row please," she answered.

"You really don't want to do that," the usher said

"The pastor is really boring." 

"Do you happen to know who I am?" the woman inquired.

"No." he said.

"I'm the pastor's mother," she replied indignantly.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"No." she said.

"Good," he answered.

- - contributed by Josephine Pico      

 

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A day without sunshine

is like, you know, night.  

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Gratitude

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today,

and creates a vision for tomorrow." -  - Melody Beattie

 Contributed by Brad Holway

 

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Your Space - For Guest Writers, Ghost Writers, and Commentators

 

THANK YOU!  to Dr. Brad Holway, Leonard Berman, and Maryann Hall for your interesting and diverse contributions this week.   And Thanks to Jo Pico for the "Usher" joke!   I'm still smiling! 

 

Would you like to submit an article, around 250 to 300 words?   

     

This Could  be YOU!

Remember, every writer in the Living Happy Writers Group started out by offering a story or article.  You are invited to join this eminent group.  Just submit a story or a poem, and click on the Living Happy link below.  I look forward to  reading your work!   

 

For Comments and to Contact Living Happy  click this link.  

Thank You!    

 - - Carole - - 

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