We’ve been on quite a roller coaster ride over the last 4 years in our attempt to adopt a baby. Things have not gone so well, but recently, we were proposed a baby from Vietnam. We debated whether or not to go through the pain of completing huge amounts of paperwork and preparations, not knowing if anything would come out of it, but thought we should take advantage of this opportunity and give it one more try.
We were told to expect the process to complete next year some time in Feb or March, but got the news last week that the baby is ready and we need to go to Vietnam on Dec 7th, 2009 to receive! We’re extremely excited and frantically making preparations that couples often have 9 months to do in one month (we didn’t feel able to prepare properly in the past not knowing what would happen with our previous attempts at adopting from Canada, China, and Korea…)
He is a boy and his name is Ut, but we will also give him the Western name Evan. He will be four months old when we get him and we expect to stay in Hanoi, Vietnam for at least 3 weeks to complete legal and immigration paperwork once we receive him.
At this point, any number of things could happen to change this adoption or prevent it from happening, and until the baby is back home in Canada, it is in no way official. So please keep us in your prayers.
The ongoing debate about whether or not to go along with the push to vaccinate has got me thinking, maybe people are actually waking from their comfortable slumber. It’s a very heated and complex issue, so I hesitate to blog about it but felt compelled.
For ages we humans have been used to getting our information from others. Long ago it was the kings and bishops, now priests, ministers, politicians and doctors. We listened obediently without questioning to those who knew better than we did. In the past this was understandable, most were illiterate for the most part and required scribes, holy men, and sages to enlighten us.
Today, although these practices have our instincts in a highly weakened state, people are literate and highly capable of figuring out things through their own research. They are finally starting to embody Baha’u’llah‘s recent teachings encouraging the ‘independent investigation of truth‘, emphasizing the fundamental obligation of human beings to acquire knowledge with their “own eyes and not through the eyes of others.”
A great example of this is this debate about vaccinations. Over 40% of people now refuse vaccinations despite great pressure to do so. It sparked my interest when one of my favorite magazines, Wired magazine published a very opinionated front cover stance encouraging vaccination ‘in the name of science’ Which I found very disappointing.
Doctors insist you get them, but then traditional medical doctors have to because they work hand in hand with drug companies to band aid symptoms, rather than studying diet, allergies, and nutrition, and trying to deal with the root of the problem. (My apologies for my bias here with medical doctors, but if my mother had listened to doctors when I was a baby, I would be very ill right now if not dead, being the survivor of 5 miscarriages who’s health problems got worse in the hands of MD’s)
The Wired article tries to show the kingpin of vaccinations, Paul Offit in a positive light, without really giving any solid fact or reasons doctors and governments should be insisting we get vaccinated. It’s written by someone without any credibility in the field.
Another article in the Huffington Post shows Paul Offit in a very different light and gives the opposing perspective. What is telling about both articles are the 500+ comments on them. People are getting tired of being told to do something potentially damaging without a good reason, so they are doing their own research. And the medical profession doesn’t like it because it means they’re losing control over doing things the way they want to and have been for centuries. It’s the same issue that is overturning the music industry. The People are winning the battle, and it is a very good thing.
The interesting thing is how the comments shed far more light on the truth behind the vaccine debate than the articles ever can. Did you know that the last time many of the diseases babies are vaccinated for were a concern was in the 1920’s?
When those who should be caring for us insist we subject ourselves to potentially damaging substances that have now been shown to potentially do more harm than good, how can we trust what they tell us to do any longer?
When the best interests of humanity have been left in the hands of those who primarily aim to profit from it, we need to build up our instincts again and rely more on independent investigation of truth to see through the veils that have been quietly and subtly placed all around us. Not that we shouldn’t listen to professionals, just do your research as well before making decisions.
I personally feel the lack of solid research makes it hard to make a confident decision. But I’m hesitant to get injected or inject my future children with poisons that could cause serious health problems to possibly fight some diseases that were primarily an issue in the 1920’s and represent little threat today, but that is just my own opinion, and I’ve learned enough about health to feel confident in healing anything.
Read the articles and all the comments and links therein, and see what you feel to be the right decision for you.
For most of my life, like most people, I’ve gone to great lengths to control my things and make sure everything turned out the way I wanted.
Things never really turned out the way I wanted though at all, and I realized that my desire for control over life was exactly why I wasn’t receiving all the benefits I deserved!
I decided to start doing something totally different: Let a higher power have control, recognize and trust my instincts, and just accept things that come into my path. And amazing things started to happen! Amazing people and opportunities I never could have imagined started coming into my life, and they still are. My life is taking a very different path, and I’m heading towards fantastic things and a new balance and happiness that never would have been possible without relinquishing control, and waking up from the illusion of needing to be in control of everything in my life.
So you want to try it? I read a great blog post that will help you with this if you feel your ready to make some big changes in your life to have the amazing things that elude most people.
I’ve been checking out some of the music apps out there for the iPhone, and my first thought was wouldn’t it be cool if someone could create something to emulate amazing but expensive music hardware like the innovative Tenori-On, and the Roland TR series machines. Well I searched, and there they were!
For Tenori-On like music making, there is TonePad, and SoundGrid.
For you classic techno music kids out there – If you liked the Roland TR series machines, or ReBirth on the computer from Propellerhead, check out the impressive TechnoBox from Audiorealism: 808, 909, 303 machine emulation and a cool new graphic interface.
I just think it’s amazing that for $5, you can get the sound and abilities of 3 hardware devices that would cost thousands of dollars to buy used on a phone.
An interesting article in the Globe And Mail recently discussed how technology and the digital revolution has created a corresponding scarcity of attention. In becoming information-rich, we have become attention-poor.
Quite extraordinary how fast the technology has accelerated actually as this amazing video I posted illustrates… It is as if a house that cost half a million dollars in 1964 could be bought today for a nickel, or if life expectancy had been reduced from 75 years to four minutes.
And with almost all of the world’s codified knowledge at your fingertips, why should you spend increasingly scarce attention loading up your own mind just in case you may some day need this particular fact or concept? Far better, one might argue, to access efficiently what you need, when you need it.
The concern is that for now, the just-in-time approach seems to be narrowing peripheral intellectual vision and thus reducing the serendipity that has been the source of most radical innovation of the past, when brilliant minds studied concepts for hours before gaining their important insights.
The article suggest that our challenge is to adapt, and then to evolve, in a world where there continues to be an exponential increase in the supply of information relative to the supply of human attention.
I have certainly found this to be a challenge as an instructor for material that is ever changing.
More in depth discussion regarding this can be found after the article:
An important part of my role as a music producer is to get the best possible performance from artists in the studio both technically and emotionally.
I find I often fall short in this area though because unless they are professionals who have done large live performances for many years, most vocalists are often unable to deliver to their full potential. This doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t give great performances, it just means they could have done even better.
This is usually because the vocalist is not in optimal physical shape. Your health and physical fitness level has a huge impact on your vocal performances in the studio, and of course live. Sure, how comfortable you are with letting go and giving your all emotionally in the studio is also very important. But to get a great performance, you really need to have a lot of power to deliver strong, clean vocal phrases. Without this power and energy, your performances will sound weak and shaky, quivering, particularly on the ends of longer words or sustained melodies and this drastically reduces the quality and impact of the performance.
Studio tools and tricks can rarely correct these problems effectively, so that’s why it’s so important for singers to keep in top physical shape if they want to give the best performance they’re capable of live and in the studio. Eat healthy food that gives you lots of energy, and adopt a regular cardio exercise routine at least 4 times a week.
Another recommendation, in addition to warming up properly before a performance and singing regularly in a choir, is opera training, or a great vocal coach such as Brennan Barrett, to help you get as much power as you can without exerting yourself more than you have to, and to assisting with effective breathing techniques that will give you better phrasing and power in the right places.
A producer can only do so much, and in my case, I can work a lot of miracles to make you sound great no matter what, but ultimately, I can only use the best you give me! Make sure that really is your best, as you never know who will hear your finished performance, or how far it will spread.
“There are good and bad newspapers…Those who play for their own little selfish ends give no true light to the world and perish of their own futility”
– Abdu’l-Bahá, New York, 1912
Last year, I edited video and did all the post production and consulting for an educational DVD, ‘Medieval Times in China and Beyond’. I recently completed the companion DVD for this series, Medieval Europe & the Crusades:
If your interested in these DVD’s which come with detailed teachers guides, visit TeachingForThinking.com
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