"Nuts"...and I'm not referring to Cashews...nor am I "speaking" in obscene slang...

Margarita and I were in the middle of a conversation while driving to the Metropolitan Park where we go for gathering a lot of the Sun's Rays (vitamin D) while we exercise for around 1.5 hours... And now I must re-phrase this introductory line leading you towards why I mention the word "Nuts"... Ok.  Here we go again...

"While strolling through the park one day. In the merry merry month of May I was taken by surprise. By a pair of roguish eyes. I was scared but I didn't run away..."  

Maybe you should have...  run a way... if he didn't have legs twice the length of yours... and the key to the bathroom door...  

Ok.  Maybe I should continue over again... 

You think I'm crazy.  Don't you?  But, truthfully you don't know what all of this is about.  Do you?

While driving to the park this afternoon, I found myself in the middle of a conversation with Margarita that led me to remember the wonderful Barbara Streisand/Richard Dreyfus movie, "Nuts".  Truthfully, I don't remember why I saw it decades ago, and just how much I saw... Although I was very impressed...

Before showing the movie with Spanish Subtitles I found on YouTube (we can't buy every movie I think a pertanent part of our constant conversation). I introduced Margarita to some of Barbara Streisand's music, thinking Margarita should have heard her songs, just as she's heard the BeeJees and Billy Joel etc...  I wanted Margarita to know a little about Barbara Streisand as a singer before seeing her act so...  And I remembered that I would NEVER have told my middle-school peers that I like Barbara Streisand's music or face.  Actually, I loved her face and her original nose...  The same went for Barry Manilow...  You've gotta love the "Copacabana", although I had no idea I would find myself living a good part of my life in Mexico only speaking Spanish.  In fact, it is very difficult for me to speak English... It was much easier when I changed from English to Spanish speaking with my Mexican Federal Police friend, whose probably reading this as are you...  Fortunately for him, he can also read what I just posted in Spanish...  Good for me, I can read, write and speak both languages, although it is easier for me to speak Spanish than write it and write English than speak it...  

But back to Claudia (Barbara Streisand) and her "craziness"... I loved the scene when Claudia's mother cries out, "I'm so sorry! I had no idea!"  No she didn't.  She was always too drunk...  But, as you know, just because a family member or the family members didn't know what happened behind closed doors or when they weren't around, does NOT mean that those things did NOT occur...  

At the moment I am having difficulty remembering what led up to the part of the conversation where I remembered the movie and wanted Margarita to see it... Something to do with feminist "theory" and why some feminists believe that female prostitution is the legal right of the woman...  As Claudia explained to the Judge and others in the courtroom, "I knew women who married men they despised just to be able to have the Mercedes, house in the country, fir coats... I know women who crawled through shit just to..."  The conversation was long.  An earlier part of it explaining why it is the adults' (and parents) responsibility to talk with the children about sexuality (not in the form of Claudia's step dad) since they will find out about it possibly in ways or much earlier than what would be desired by the adults.  But that wasn't really the beginning.  Margarita had made a comment that sexual pleasure is most logical during the period when the two people are able to create babies and possibly when they are passed the procreation period, maybe it is understandable that they feel less... 

It was a good conversation that led to our watching the very impacting movie... But, a poor recreation of the actual conversation is a slippery slope...  When do children discover their "sexuality" or what can cause pleasure and how... who taught  "little twin" about her "little dick" (her words at that age) when she was only 6-years-old and that had a horrible impact upon all of us... But, for some, it is "better" to ignore and forget.  I have this horrible problem of not being able to forget as easily as others and the other problem that I can't ignore ANYTHING...  I can walk on by... But, I can't truly close my eyes...  I couldn't forget the tears... nor the screams...  You've gotta love a good Dionne Warwick song...  

Truthfully, I don't know why I was so impressed by "nuts" when I was so "young"... I guess I know now.  Or maybe I always knew...  I remembered other things today talking with Margarita in the Park... They were interesting discoveries.  But, I don't remember them at this moment...  

There are two or more people in a relationship.  For that relationship to work, all of the members must truly respect and consider the needs, feelings, experiences and rights of the others...  If it is a relationship between two people, both people must have their lines of communication open and respect the needs/desires and state of being at each and every moment of the other... All people deserve equal respect and equal consideration.  No one is the property of another...  And if we "mess-up" it is our responsibility to share our awareness and disappointment in ourselves with the other person.  And not because that's what we think the other person wants.  We have the responsibility to work towards harmony with the other person and try and understand the best we can why the other does not feel harmony with us.  

Why?  I don't know.  Maybe I was too strongly impacted by what I saw in movies or read in novels or heard from the Rabbi who visited with us a few times every summer in camp... Maybe I was too sensitive to the messages between the lines meant for teaching "us" how to be better building blocks of a healthy, productive and harmonious society...  Yes, it could all be part of a Utopian Dream or nightmare like Aldoux Huxley's "Brave New World"...  Or was that book written when Huxley had come to "terms" with his dream of constructing "Utopia" and realized that it was organically impossible?  Originating from Great Britain was the Utopia philosophical/cultural movement you find the writers Huxley and Orwell...  But that seemingly gave way to the existential movement of Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir and Moravia (although he was actually listed below humanism, but there are few differences, although some may say that humanism is intentional and existentialism unintentional)...  Maybe with the second world war, the Utopian bubble was burst... and with the fascist occupation of France and Italy, existentialism was born... 

But, what does this mean for those who were traumatized in supposedly safe environments?  And what about those who live in safe environments intentionally created incredibly safe for others, but not for them, although they've been told that they have the right to what only the others receive?  And what if you live in a world where you were never promised anything and in the name of something good or something bad, you were made to suffer horribly for super-extended periods of time, and without any form of explanation?

For the poor Catholics, "It's God's will" and something good in the future is only possible if it's "God willing"...  

And what if around the age of 6 the girl or the boy began being sexually abused by bigger people (people we "should" trust... possibly people who "should" protect us) and the were confused, because it was a confusing "issue" or experience or situation... and maybe they said no one day and didn't say no another... and what if they liked the attention or confused it with "love" or they like the feeling... at the same time as not liking any of it?  Claudia exclaimed that she NEVER said NO to her stepfather, as if she was to blame for his assault and violation of her...  

What happens when the woman puts on a mini skirt and a low cut blouse and wears a push-up bra to eccentuate her breasts?

Why can most people accept a shirtless man and a woman in her "brazier" etc on the beach, but not on a sunny day in a park?  

What happens or is happening?  If the woman in the bikini top in the park or the mini-skirt in the club is assaulted or raped (or misunderstood by her date who couldn't control his excitement or desire and received an undesired response to his actions)...

Yes, all adults must consider all possible "responses" or "consequences" to their actions... and ask maybe why the would risk being in certain situations...  Although assault is assault, violation is violation and there is only one truly guilty party...  However, what happens to children, what is done to children is a whole different subject and has life long consequences for the innocent (the child is always innocent).  The form the consequences take depends greatly upon many factors, that depend greatly upon the adults responsible for the health of the child... 

They didn't create the film "Nuts" just for entertaining viewers or for creating mental masterbation for the intellectuals... or for displaying Barbara Streisand's acting skills.  

It wasn't hypothetical...

Peregrinaciónes con Cuñao

¿Recuerdas qué me dijiste saliendo del rancho... del nuevo año... que va estar muy bueno?  Imagino renunciaste tus planes poner un centro de servicios psíquicos...  Pero, siendo personas no psíquicas, no podemos saber como estaria el resto del año.  Claro.  No podemos desdefuntar personas queridas defuntas...  Tampoco podemos cambiar que paso antes...  Como no podemos saber como va estar mañana y sí sabemos mucho de que fue, la única opción que tenemos es entender el pasado, aprender de lo "bueno" y lo "malo" y planear lo mejor que podemos para mañana.  ¿Sabes que mañana es perpetua y nunca cambia?  El momento que estás en mañana, es hoy resbalando en el mismo tiempo hacia "ayer"... Pero, mañana siempre es mañana...  Entonces, como siempre estamos en el presente aprendiendo del pasado y mirando hacia "mañana" o el futuro, tenemos que procurar hacer bien el presente... Tratalo pensarlo así:  Estás mirando hacia el medio metro cubico de tierra donde están parados tus pies...  ¿En que condición de estado quieres tener el medio metro cubico de tierra en que están parados tus pies?  ¿Quieres que estás parado encima de una falla tectonica muy activa o un sumidero?  ¿Quieres estar parado en el medio metro cubico de tierra en que va caer un meteorite?  Claro que no puedes saberlo.  Pero, puedes saber si donde paras tiene la tendencia de terremotos fuertes o se inunde seguido o si es entre los dos frentes militares que estan disparando balas o misiles o lanzando grenadas...  Puede ser un medio metro de Tepito o, Culiacan o....  El segundo que mueves tus pies, necesitas que no estás lanzandote hacia un abismo y todavia no has aprendido volar...  Me dijiste algo de que tanto le queria a Oligario yo... Pero, siento que me entendiste mal.  Cuando muere algo, tenemos el deber acordarnos de como fue su vida... Cuando la person está viva, tenemos el deber respetarla y considerar sus necesidades... Pero, tambien tenemos la responsibilidad de considerar las necesidades de TODAS las personas relacionadas con nosotros, los moribundos, los difuntos, los machistas y los alcoholicos.  Puedo decirte con confianza, si te ama tanto a ti y a Margarita como le amaste a Oligario, no cree él, tú abuelo que estoy faltando respeto de él...  Acuerdate, a veces hacemos cosas que verdaderamente no queremos o no lo queria nuestro alma... O, mejor escrito: hacemos cosas que parece que hacen daño a la gente importante a nosotros, aunque nunca fue nuestro deseo verdaderamente hacerla daño.  Tal vez, en el gran plan, uds necesitaban vivir las consecuencias del alcoholismo de Oligario, sus hijos, yerno y nietos...  A veces repetimos actos dañinos en la esperanza de encontrarla respuesta adecuada...  Solo conocí dos Oligarios: el borracho horriblimente ofensivo y el no borracho discapacitado mentalmente...  Sí tengo la memoria (y fotos) del día que fuimos con él y tú papa al Fortin... Fue un muy gran día y "mis respetos" a la fuerza física de los dos viejos...  Pero, existe otra historia o un presente perpetua que saben todos relacionados con tú abuelo... Sí tambien existen cosas que pasaron en privada que muchos no saben... Y tenemos que respetar éstas eventos tambien...  Si cierras los ojos a la verdad, se repite lo malo... como mala hierba. Si brincas, necesitas saber hacia adonde estás brincando.  Si no te mueves, no pasa nada, mientras no estás parado encima de una falla tectonica o un sumidero.  Y si no sabes donde estás parado, mejor debes empezar preguntar y investigar...  Y si no pasa nada, significa que ni bueno...  No digo, ni malo, porque si puede cagarte un pajaro...  Tal vez lo vez como un señal de buena suerte... Pero, si nunca te mueves... o no suficientemente frequente o rápido...  ¿que pasa con la gente moribunda o condenada a una cama, quien no puede moverse para ir al baño o para bañarse quien no tiene que le mueve de posición, lleve al baño y hace aseo de la cama y limpieza higienica de su cuerpo? aunque le da agua y comida para mantenerla nutrida adecuadamente?  SE PUDRE POCO A POCO...  Y ¿que pasa si sigue bajando el valor del peso Mexicano para el rancho porque sigue subir la canasta basica y no sube adecuadamente el sueldo mínimo (o no tan mínimo) ni el precio estatal o nacional de café cereza...?  La gente tiene menos poder equisitivo para pagar sus necesidades, mejor el medio metro cubico de tierra en que están parados o guardar algo para "mañana"... en el caso de un terremoto, inundación, guerra entre pandillas, la visita prolongada de Zetas, un Hurrican, una plaga peor que la Roya o Colera...  Todos necesitarian bastante fe en que "si Dios quiere"...  En Estados Unidos escuche muchas veces el dicho Protestante (Cristiano) "Dios ayude a quien se auto-ayude"... o como ha escuchado en Español Margarita: "Ayudate que yo te ayudaré"... Es un buen consejo... No esperes que Dios te manda un señal que tal vez no entendiste... Salio una noticia durante la feria de Leon: regresando de San Juan de Los Lagos, despues de visitar con "la Virgen", en el autopista Leon-Aguascalientes... estaba viajando una familia grande en una camioneta Ford cargada con reliquias y otros regalitos... se volo la llanta de frente y se volteo la camioneta viajando a alta velocidad... Murio una de las niñas...  Es que ¿no rezaron suficiente o adecuadamente?   Es pensar... Dijo el noticiero otras cosas para prevenir un tal "disgusto"... Accidente de tal estilo...  O tal vez tenia más poder que la Virgen el Diablo...  Parezco irreverente o faltante de respeto... Sin embargo, creo que podemos aprender de la multitud de posibles mensajes...  ¿esperar que te dice Dios que valor tiene tú vida cuando has muerto y estás en el día de juzgado divino? o tratas lo mejor que puedes trabajar "bien" en la vida mientras que estás vivo?  ¿Que leyenda dejo al rancho Oligario? ¿que dejarias?  No tengo que dejar nada al rancho.  Pero, lo he dejado bastante.  Y no es egoismo que digo...  No fue mi responsibilidad estar tan en contacto con uds... En la historia de cuñados o yernos, parece anti-natural.  Claro, no siempre entendemos que deberia haber pasado o que debemos o como debemos estar pasando para que se satisface el trabajo divino que todos tenemos que estar haciendo...  Tal vez un trabajo divino es ser alcoholico o desollar gente o repetir mentiras o engaños o que quiere el gobierno que escuchan los niños de los profesores o la gente del sacerdote...  igual que tengo que hacer algo con uds, aunque parece demasiado frequentamente que no entienden o no respetan o no quieren que ofrezco...  Tal vez estamos trabajando juntos en un trabajo divino aunque no entendemos verdaderamente, y no podemos saber como terminaria... Pero, tenemos demasiado historia atrás de nosotros para no entender hacer algo un poco diferente, un poco mejor/proactivo...  Tengo acceso a mucha información, tengo mucha experiencia... y la capacidad encontrar más información y ideas...  Todavia creo que cuando nacieron uds, nacieron con buenos cerebros y buenos "corazones"...  Pero... Y tienes que entender el "pero" y tratar entender hacia donde va la frase no escrito... porque no es mi responsibilidad explicar todo, todo el tiempo.  El trabajo tambien es de uds...  No fue Dios quien dijo "Dios ayude a los quien se auto-ayudan."  Todas las palabras escritas y escuchadas han sido por voluntad humana...  Los humanos tienen la responsibilidad de resolver sus problemas y limpiar sus desmadres ;-)  Y si, no quieren hacer nada... Es su decisión tambien... solo existen ciertas repercusiones que tal vez no van apreciar "mañana"...  

Existe mucho trabajo... físico, mental, psicologico, y espiritual...  No tienes que hacer nada... pero, no hacer nada es hacer algo... aunque existen más probabilidades no vas o van (como los nietos y sobrinos de Oligario, Chayo, Gollo, Negro y Fego cuando todos estaban tomando juntos) gustar el resultado de éstos acciónes que si hiciste algo proactivo...

under investigation... Ross the revolutionary...

always a curious boy... wanting to know the world... too much... understanding to seek... constantly...

I like that line.  Very poetic... in my conception of poetics...  But I can't continue with the thread.  Nor will I try.  I know I disappoint you.  Why?  Because maybe it could have been better... the time you dedicate to reading what I wrote...  But, that's just it with "maybe"... there is no certainty... as I know with my blog...  The other day a friend wrote me in Spanish that I seem like a writer.  Now, what's the difference between writers and those who seem like a writer?  "MAYBE"... a lack of certainty.  But, what gave you the idea that there existed so much certainty in life...  We don't know.  We just plug on... someone once wrote "keep on keeping on..."  It may have been in a popular song I heard... I may have used the line too...  you keep on continuing, just as the Earth continues spinning... Do you ask why...  Remember that song, "I stop the world and melt with you"?  And when we thought about the world suddenly stops spinning, we feel nautious... why?

Margarita is reading the last part of Follett's "the 20th Century Trilogy"... that takes place during the civil rights movement, the cold war... etc and so forth...  I finished that book in October...  Towards the end I became disappointed... as if Ken Follett felt extremely pressured to finish it on time...  Too bad.  A few days ago, I was looking for movies on Youtube... if we don't have to pay to go to the movie theater or buy the video (if you can actually find it here... or on YouTube)...  At the moment I don't remember why I stumbled across Spike Lee...  Or was it that he produced or directed a movie... aah... yes... It was because we wanted to watch "Old Boy", as a change of pace... a film unrelated with anything we were reading or studying at the moment... and I was surprised that it was produced and directed by Spike Lee... If I'm correct, I haven't seen a Spike Lee "Joint" since the early-90s...  I'm so out of the loop.  Truthfully, I don't know what I was seeking and how it led me to "Black August"... maybe I was looking up Spike Lee's documentary on Huey Newton... 

At the moment I'm reading at least 3 books at a time: The second book "The Green Pope/El Papa Verde" of "the Banana Republic Trilogy" by Guatamalan Nobel Prize Novelist, Miguel Angel Asturias, "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexandre Solzhenitzen (also Nobel Prize Novelist) and the last 40 pages of Udo Erasmus' book "Fats that Heal; Fats that Kill"... in the middle of awaiting the response by our car insurance company and considering the acquisition of a new cargo van and "arguing" with one of my 8 brothers-in-law and researching random items about diet and health etc... I figured a change of pace would be good...

The interesting thing is that, while movies are a nice change of pace, they also serve as great back up sources for what we or Margarita is reading...  Since I couldn't find anything interesting by Spike Lee on YouTube, like The Huey Newton Story or "get on the bus"... I settled for "Mississippi Burning".  Today we watched "Black August", connected with Angela Davis' prison reform movement... It serves as a good back-up source of Margarita's reading, since one of Follett's main characters "Verena Marquand" is based partially upon Angela Davis...  In the film, one of the very aggressive/intense Black Family (related to the Black Panthers) members "Lumumba" sells out to the CIA.  Since the film is based upon true events and since Margarita mentioned that the name "Lumumba" appears in Barbara Kingsolver's "A Poisonwood Bible", I decided to look him up on Google... It turns out that there are 3 Lumumbas...  The lider of the Congolese Independence movement and the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo (who appears in Kingsolver's Novel), Chokwe Lumumba, former Mayor of Jackson Missippi who is mentioned by a different name in Follett's book, who was the lider of the "New Africa Movement" for creating an African American Republic in the region of the gulf states just after Martin Luther King was assassinated.  While seeking historical truth connected with the traitor Lumumba portrayed in "Black August", I stumbled across a "Black August Conmemoration Kick-off and Chokwe Lumumba Birthday celebration party..." page on Facebook and "Chokwe Lumumba [speaking] on Black August Resistance"... and then Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele; NAACP/LDF, who is senior community organizer in LDF's Criminal Justice Practice, also community organizer/educator in central Brooklyn, and founder of the "Black August Hip Hop Project", but too young to have been the Lumumba traitor in the film...  Ironies...

All in all, in the middle of all of this "curiosity may have killed the cat; more likely he was just unlucky..." my computer froze...  I'm all to familiar with the freezing of the computer in the middle of an innocent search...  But someone else has always been searching.  But, truthfully, what do they find?  

Maybe they find my writings less boring that do I.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  I don't return to read my writings... not even curious to see why "someone" returns constantly to read certain writings... I get bored.  Why?  "I spy a... " what?  Part of a 60s or 50s children's game...?  No, it's from a much earlier children's game in England... around the 30s...  Can you finish that line?  I heard it in a recent Zoë song... although the singer was singing in Spanish... and the singer and the group are from Mexico... Granted, he sings wonderfully in British English... sounds a little bit like John Lennon or the singer of Arctic Monkeys...  although from England, they film a lot in the Mojave Desert of California...  the drummer seemingly wishes he were an actor and has a fixation on guns, the "Hells Angels" and motor cycles...  If the Beatles could sing "The Balad of Bungalow Bill..." and "Rocky Rackoon" that takes place in the Black Hills of South Dakota... I guess this turn of the century (21st) Punk/Indy group from Sheffield England could be fixated on Film Noir Lifestyles of Southern California, just as the author of "Curiosity", Scottish Poet and South American Scholar, Alastair Reid could have lived in Argentina, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Chile, writing his poems in English...  

During the fair, I was repeatedly visited by a Federal Police officer who supposedly wanted to practice his English with me since he supposedly spent most of his life (26 years) in the U.S., while destroying sales, since Mexicans don't like to buy from us if they hear me speaking English (or Spanish with my "American" accent)...  One of the first of his questions was, in his words, personal, "Are you legal here?... My brother-in-law is from rural South Carolina (where I also worked for the sheriff's department) and he wants to know how he could live in Mexico." I offered to show him my residency card pulling the wallet out of my back pocket, immediately causing his response that that is not necessary... The following day he asked my permission to take a photo with me for the Federal Police website showing their contact with foreignors in Mexico and asked me why I seemed nervous when I was considering the response.  With the José's destruction of the pick-up, and the fact that our line of customers dwindled in the time that the Federal (Investigator) was speaking with me... and due to my having prepaired myself two double moka-nut cappuccinos a few minutes earlier, since I was very tired and needed to be awake for the heavy work, I may have seemed nervous...

But, his two questions in two days reminded me of the only other time I was accused of being illegal in Mexico and at the same time asked why my hands were trembling:  February 2008, after packing our coffee bar the whole night and not having slept for 36 hours and then while driving 6 hours from Colima through Guadalajara to Tepic Nayarit, on the federal (not toll road) highway approaching Tequila, Jalisco (yes, that Tequila), I passed a Federal Patrol car that had just pulled over someone in a curve, noticed that the speed limit sign said, 40 kms, and slowed my speed to that... And then suddenly, that Federal Patrol car was pulling me over... And then one of the two Federal Police Officers asked me why I was driving so slow... And then they asked me to step out of the truck and told Margarita to stay seated.  And then they asked me to show them what I was carrying... and asked me if I was transporting arms/weapons... And I invited them to inspect my cargo... And they asked me for my visa, which I explained was in Immigration in Mexico City, since every February (I entered Mexico at the end of January) they asked for my visa (FM2 or FM3) for the visa renewal process... Sometimes they didn't give me the response for between 3 and 6 months... The younger official was very antagonistic and said, "so you are illegal here!!!".  And I explained to him that I was NOT illegal, since my papers were with Immigration... and showed him the paper that explained that they had my visa in their offices...  In the end, his superior told him to stop wasting time with me and let me return to the truck and on our way...  But, I will never forget the question and how it reminded me of the only other time I was asked the same thing...  

Look, this is petty stuff... when you read about what happens with other "less fortunate" people and in other countries... Did you know that the only way that the newly formed Soviet Union could defend its "revolution" and later on compete with the U.S. and other industrialized nations was to arrest innocent people (many highly educated) and send them to labor camps?  I didn't know that... But, Nobel Prize writer Boris Pasternak and especially Solzenitzen make that extremely clear...  And one can spend their lifetime reading horrifying examples of much worse communal experiences of people of African Descent in the U.S. and how the Soviet Union treated their ethnic "communists" and what happened in so many South and Central American countries in the 60s through the 80s... And why ignore what has been occuring throughout Africa and what occurred in the Carribean during the first half of the 20th Century and what is happening in many Islamic countries...  And, yes, what happens here in Mexico since 2006...  

And maybe these things are really the least of anyone's troubles... And if someone became interested in why I was watching "Black August" and looking up information that may have something to do with Black-"American" revolutionary or separatist movements... causing the freezing of my computer... it was not the Mexican Federal Police but a department of the U.S. Federal Government that is always concerned that "expatriots" living in foreign countries (especially Mexico) are connected with subversive movements (terrorist), such as Al Quaeda...  

Read my whole blog... and read it twice... and you should find the truth...  and what I realized a long time ago:  I'M NOT THAT INTERESTING...  Interested, yes... I am curious...  I want to understand...  As for revolutions and changing the world...  Nor with incredible violence, nor with incredible logic or education or super intense and massive peaceful movements...  Human nature is generally selfish and autodestructive, greedy and inconsiderate, hedonistic and chauvanistic with a tendency towards ignorance (which is intentional and not innocent) and short sightedness...  You can preach all you want about honesty, sincerety and consideration... But, what you find in the end is that everyone lives as if there is no other life (and no one more important than they; "Look after #1") and worries first and foremost about being comfortable and increasing their material well-being... and who truly gives a flying "fish" (You know what word is hidden behind "fish") about how anyone else lives or suffers or had their rights stolen from them...

The United Nations is home to the International Department of Human Rights and UNICEF and WHO... and finds its headquarters in New York City... But, truthfully, those "funding" the UN truly worry about human rights or if countries designate enough of their budget to protecting and developing their children or if poor communities around the world have adequate food or clean water or medical facilities or or or for true health etc?

And do you believe that killing people and blowing up buildings will help the UN work better?  Or millions of people marching on their capitals throughout the world will actually change things?

Yes, I believe that the activists and the educators and the documentary film makers and those who try and publish their stories or have their voices heard... the conscientious and concerned people are very very important... for something... The world's "lesson"?  But, I don't believe that they are enough, even if they were half of the world's population or 3.5 billion people, they could "correct" the problem... Since, truthfully, I don't believe that they truly know what it is that must be cured or solved... And if they knew, maybe they wouldn't truly care... or they wouldn't know what to do... Violence is simple-minded... Although, when you understand what has happened in the U.S. to offspring of those who were brought from Africa to the Americas, you may understand the violent response...  But, you should also understand that that isn't a solution either... What is the solution?

You can't change human nature... Some people change dramatically. But most people don't... And we find history constantly repeating itself, although we do teach it...  The idea was that remembering the events prevents history from repeating itself... momentarily, in regions, possibly...  But, in the long run... it's all a nice intellectual idealistic illusion... like a catch phrase...

Yes, I believe in sharing for raising consciousness.  Truthfully, I don't know why I do that... since I have so little faith in human nature...

Look at who has responded to what...  "They" read so much of what I write.  But, no one responds... Why not?

And do a perusal of the internet blogs and analyze what creates lots of responses...  

What a bad revolutionary I am! 

Back to the esoteric, another perspective of Adam and Eve; response to the idea of reincarnation or past lives...

Considering that the spirit is sex or gender non specific, and much of what we "understand" about gender is socio-politically constructed for us... aside from certain physiological/biological differences... it really doesn't matter what sex we are... Imagine if we could replicate without conjugation... or if men had female sex organs etc... How would that change our perception of things? I say all of this because the probability is very high that the boy turned man will reject the idea that he was a woman in a past life... Why? because of what it "means" to be a man or a woman for at least 10,000 years... Life is a lesson... very personal for each and every person... The lesson could have its base in horrible suffering... or it could be based upon frustration and boredom caused by the lack of any form of difficulty or challenge... It could be the process of believing you are a man in a woman's body... Considering socio-political constructs and certain perceptions, this could very well be obsurd... In ways "you are what you are"... at this moment... In another life? a different story. It's kind of like the interpretation of dreams: 

Over 7 years ago in Acapulco a Middle-Class Mexican woman in her 50s told me that the soul can inhabit up to 10 bodies at a time... and that she had experience with "removing" spirits or souls (I'm not really certain if there is an actual difference) trying to occupy the body occupied by another spirit, such as your very own spirit... Sounds like exorcism, and maybe it is in forms, but not like exorcizing "the devil."  My first reaction was that she was off her rocker... But, for some reason I never forgot what she said, how she said it... and have returned to the idea repeatedly... thinking about certain dreams. And back to that... 

Was the dream the return to an experience of a past life? But, it really seems very modern and vivid... When we sleep, is it possible that we connect with the lives that our spirits are participating in other bodies at the same time? Or is it that our minds are so creative that they can invent Hollywoodlike films as dreams? Although I do believe that our brains or minds have much more potential than which we connect with in our normal life, I still doubt that we can create/invent such vivid "artificial" moments. Dreams are symbolic or metaphoric... They are psychological (subconscious) manifestations of our concerns or fears... or forms of our subconsciousness trying to manipulate us to change... Dreams occasionally are warnings or messages about what will occur later on or what we must change so that certain things don't occur or stop occuring... like premonitions... 

Some people believe that time is just a human construct and that everything is occurring at the same time... so there are no past lives but concurrent lives... returning to what the Mexican woman said in Acapulco in 2007... That concept of non-lineal time (like "back to the future" in ways, although it still used lineal time) is a bit difficult to understand. Then again, humans, in as complex, sophistocated and scientific or intelligent as we are, have extreme difficulty understand the "abstract" like the metaphysical because we are extremely dependent upon a certain form of organization of understanding. Like relying upon the triad/trinity (Father-Son-Holy Ghost/Father, Mother, Child/Birth, Life, Death/Elderly, Adult, Infancy), devolutionized from the circle (womb, family, community, world). How did they pull triangle from circle? "The triangle is still a circle because it is closed..." 

When woman was worshiped for her ability to create life from her body or propagate plant life from already existent plants, life and god/dess was represented as a circle... Then man became "jealous" and ruthlessly envious and the trinity was constructed... with the grand father of humans at the top of the pyramid... But, virtually without the presence of women... until the culmination with God giving birth to a son through "his" metaphoric penis... Ejaculating Jesus through the vulva of Mary into the "modern world" of Bethlehem... And when Abraham was going to sacrifice his son (Isaac?), why didn't Sarah have a word in the decision? And Moses... who was his mother? Didn't he just appear floating in a stream? And wasn't this similar to another biblical story about saving the son by sending him floating down the river? But, the river could be metaphoral symbolizing embrionic fluid... We're so creative, aren't we? 

Most of my paintings are female centered intensely looking back at you... some are pregnant. I have a crucified pregnant woman in one of them... None of my paintings are intentional... I wonder why they are so female oriented... And have repeatedly wondered about what that means about me... why I worry about "universal" sexism and the repercussions for the world... Sexism is the turning everything on its head or upside down... meaning that from the "beginning of time" or the beginning of the super-sexist era when the idea was invented that the man is the constructor and the protector of all that is truly important to humans, and the woman is just there to support "all the great men"... to care for their (his) children and care after his home and to make sure that his dinner is ready and his clothes ironed or taken and brought back from the cleaners and as a suppliment income to his income and an ear lent for listening to his complaints or his fantasies or his projects etc... 

since that evolution in our socio-political-"spiritual" constructs, we can only fail and deconstruct/ruin what was once true health... The fall from grace or the removal from Eden of Adam and Eve is the starting point. The biting of the apple and the snake didn't occur within the garden. It occurred outside. "God" didn't vanquish them from the garden. They got bored or curious and left... The snake more likely was in the mind of Adam and he offered a poisoned apple to Eve in the attempt towards robbing her of her uniqueness and vitality... A form of Vampire attempting towards robbing the health or vitality of the vital, sane and healthy... And that's the life we live... teaching the sons that their mothers are less important than are they... teaching the daughters that they will always be less than their brothers... teaching the daughters that the are at service to the men... a certain sexual exchange... they must give sons to their men in order to carry on the "family name"... the last name of the man... The woman gets erased... Granted, the man must offer something to the woman... and all modern religions teach against materialism. But, for some reason, they don't teach their people how to remove materialism from the equation... The women and men and children cease being objects of value with an actual exchange rate... 

No, it doesn't really matter if the boy was a woman in a past life... It shouldn't matter. It doesn't really matter that genetically we are half man/half woman and no one has explained the moment when the fetus "decided" to be one and not the other... How did that happen? What is important is that we challenge certain constructs and perceptions in order to try and return to the true truth and not just what we've been conditioned to believe is the truth... And, maybe these are ideas I've developed over the past so many decades. Or maybe this is information given to me by the spirits that supposedly guide me or surround me or this is information stored from so many past lives... Who knows. At the very least, it was nice of Sherilynn Lewis-Mahoney to invite me to your page and also nice to see that someone from Somerville High School is interested in something "para-ordinary". "You" caught me directly after my first coffee of the day before I had actually begun doing something "constructive". Thanks for the inspiration!

Synovial Cysts, Fibrocystic Breasts and Flaxseeds...

I don't remember if I mentioned my synovial cyst on my left hand near the wrist...  It appeared somewhere in August or September.  By November it had become the size of a marble...  During this time Margarita visited with a doctor about certain "female problems".  I imagine I had mentioned an "argument" between the doctor and I about fat and inflamation.  The doctor diagnosed Margarita with Fibrocystic Breasts and said that Margarita shouldn't eat nuts or seeds and should take Vitamin E supplements;  This is actually where the argument truly began, since the best sources of Vitamin E is in seeds, such as Sunflower, Pumpkin and Sesame...  Plus, Vitamin E supplements give you very little of the actually vitamin E your body needs...  In any case, I was curious about why she (the doctor) would prohibit nuts and seeds for Fibrocystic Breasts and began investigating...

Some of the organizations specializing in Fibrocystic Breasts and Breast Cancer suggested against the consumption of nuts and seeds.  Some recommended increased consumption of nuts and seeds.  However, the organization most virulent against the consumption of nuts and seeds due to the idea of plant estrogen suggested that Flaxseeds, although containing plant estrogen, have been shown to reduce breast cancer tumors...

Since we were already consuming ground flaxseeds (although very sporadically) for increasing HDL cholesterol, it wasn't difficult to take the leap into increasing the "dosage".  The recommended dosage of flaxseeds for increasing HDL cholesterol is 5 tablespoons per day. I mix the flaxseed in lime water; 3-4 tablespoons and the juice of 2 limes in a large glass of water.  You must constantly stir the water, since the flaxseeds constantly settle to the bottom...

It wasn't until we were working in Leon (after José's accident) that I began "taking" the flaxseeds regularly.  Margarita also increased her consumption in the mornings...  Since Margarita and Nicolas were grinding the seeds every morning, there was always ample amounts of ground flaxseeds for me in the afternoon when I was in the apartment cooking...

No only was I taking the recommended serving (5 tablespoons) of flaxseeds, I was serving myself heaping tablespoons; I calculated that I was serving myself 1.5 tablespoons instead of 1, increasing my consumption to 8 tablespoons per day...

Two weeks after I began taking the flaxseeds daily, I noticed that my synovial cyst had decreased significantly.  Today, it is hardly visible.

Margarita also mentioned that she ceased experiencing pain in her breasts, although she was eating a good amount of chocolate and drinking a lot of coffee (working in the coffee bar for 26 days straight); no-no-s for fibrocystic breasts... The lumps still exist.  But, for the first time, they ceased causing discomfort.

Política "humana", una carta a un amigo nacido el mismo día, mismo año...

El mundo es político; no importa donde estás... Es porque no soy maestro en una escuela en Nueva York... porque decidí no estudiar para una maestría en los 90s... porque todo es político. No me gusta "el juego" político. No lo hago, no lo juego bien. Soy demasiado sincero... "Sincero" siempre significa "sin-trabajo" o puede significar, "sin-amigos"... No puedo disimular disgustos o preocupaciones/molestias. Entonces, los tipos "políticos" fijan en la abertura de mi "ser" y se plantean como bacteria y se hagan llagas... Imagino esta experiencia tuya no es nueva... A veces repetimos ciertas experiencias en el intento de superarlas... Un día, tal vez, las masterizamos o cansamos de la misma cosa y decidimos buscar una experiencia más productiva para nosotros... alejando de la negatividad... evitando los mismos invasores... depredadores... El lobo o el gato montes es fuerte y feroz de verdad porque tiene que cazar para vivir y es la única cosa sabe hacer verdaderamente bien. También, para vivir, no tiene que hacer otra cosa. Pero, el humano depredador de humanos, es un ser verdaderamente débil quien inventa ilusiones de fuerza o omnipresencia haciendolas otras personas (sus presas) sufrir, inventando (proyectando) debilidad en la otra persona para auto-engañarse momentariamente que no es débil si mismo... Todos los movimientos racistas, clasistas y nacionalistas tienen sus bases en la necesidad de enpoderarse artificialmente los humanos débiles robando la fuerza y felicidad de otras... El Vampiro es un ejemplo de Hollywood y de ficción Europeo centro-este del siglo 19 del "humano" débil quien tiene que chupar la esencia positiva de gente sana para sobrevivir. Y no es suficiente que la robe a la gente sana, tiene que hacerla sufrir como él o ella mandandolas a vivir en las tinieblas con él/ella por una eternidad...


Simbolismo es interesante. Ojalá pudieramos aprender de el intelectualmente y no personalmente. Pero, como sabes, la vida (puedes llamarlo "el señor", la Diosa, Dios, los espíritus etc) nos pone en una vía o ruta o lección para aprender algo muy personal para nosotros espíritus o almas o mentes... En una forma, tienes que abrazar tú experiencia, tus dificultades, tú lección como algo muy importante para ti y solo mirar hacia arriba o alrededor de ti mismo, arcar las cejas en cuestión y preguntarle "¿adonde me llevas?" Sabes que estás conforme... estás con Él o Ella... y no te guiaria mal... Solo tienes que encontrarla fuerza propia tuya que te ayudará alcanzarla meta solo tú alma o espíritu entiende...

As certain things end, others continue...

The same month that José Francisco totalled the business' truck he was driving 5 minutes from concluding the 3 hour drive from Guadalajara to the apartment we rented in Leon, Guanajuato, Angelina's late husband Oligario died and Roberto's and Paz's first grandson, Alin 14-years-old left home with his girlfriend only to return with the girlfriend to live with his parents, who didn't send her back to her own parents...  A month earlier (New Years Day) I was speaking with Alin's parents and grandparents and uncles about finding him and his younger brother Pablo good private schools for taking advantage of their academic potential...  Since we don't have children, and since no one else worries about the quality of education in the ranch, Margarita and I decided we would float the bills...  But, now, we consider the investment an extreme risk, especially since Alin's parents haven't realized that a 14-year-old boy doesn't determine how the household is run... enough to tell the young girlfriend to hop into Daddy's truck so he could take her home to her parents, where she belongs at this age.  Granted, there is a possibility that the were "saving" her from clear and present danger such as sexual abuse etc... But, for some reason, I doubt it...

Alin is bored and restless.  It's understandable.  But, after 12 years experience with 11 brother-and-sister-in-laws and experiencing how they respond to boredome and rare opportunities, I see Alin's behavior as typical, if not just a bit precocious.

Angeline died of neglect after a lifetime of experiencing the alcoholism of Oligario and her 4 sons and their neglect of their own children.  Oligario stopped drinking a few years earlier and rapidly slipped into dementia, certainly caused by the alcoholism.  A month earlier Margarita and I had bought him a very high-tech wheel chair that reclines so that he didn't have to be lifted from the chair and carried to his bed if he were tired...  One of his legs and arms had failed months earlier...  Oligario was approaching 88-years at his death...

Pain and Sisters and others... July 6, 2011 Revisited

I was reviewing some of my earlier writings in order to give them a vacation from the blog (not delete them) when I stumbled across this piece...  And decided to give it a revisit.

I imagine... there comes a time (if you are lucky) when you realize that you can leave the "stuff" behind.  I've been feeling that way lately.  And if I had the time at the moment, that's what I would do.  However, in the midst of some "garbage" writing (although historically correct and experiencially true) I've "published" on this blog, I've written some pretty good pieces... This piece is an example.  So, I revisit it...  If you are a truly successful person (I'm not talking about material success) you find yourself in constant evolution mainly due to a certain level of introspection and conscientious/consciousness.  Maybe no one notices your evolution.  And that doesn't really matter, since you are the only one who ever truly felt your experiences.  So, maybe you are the only one who truly will appreciate yourself.  I imagine that isn't true.  Although, in the end, it probably doesn't really matter who else truly understood... 

I guess you don't understand the immense pain I felt.  I guess you think it's easy to just bring it all back to the surface.  Eh!  Fuck this!  You know absolutely nothing.  Do you think a smack in the face is something worth complaining.  No my friend.  It's an awakening.  It's a thank you sir may I have another?  A cool breeze. The smell of salt air on the board walk.  No, that's not pain.  A surgery?  Tan Poco.  Try losing everything an everyone you thought cared about you, but as a child and not being able to formulate the words for asking why?  No.  That's not it.  Do you know hunger?  Do you truly know hunger?  Imagine.  You are 6-years-old.  You haven't eaten for seemingly months and someone floats a hot slice of pizza infront of your eyes, steam rising, oil and tomato sauce dripping.  You can smell the cheese that's still oozing.  They say, "Open your mouth and close your eyes.  I'm going to give you something that isn't a surprise."  You feel the heat of the slice aproaching your mouth. You feel the vapors touching your nose, the smell of oregano and garlic wafting into your nostrils.  Your stomach growls in anticipation.  The scent is so strong you can taste it.  And then suddenly the air around your face becomes cold with the slight breeze of the person withdrawing from you, carrying away the pizza and you hear, "What? Did you really think I was going to let you eat this beautiful slice of pizza?  You've got another thing coming..."   And that was the love my mother showed for me growing up. Yes, she tries compensating, now. However, she spends most of her life compensating to herself.  Prolonged pain, prolonged neglect, prolonging intentional misunderstandings breeds anger, breeds resentment.  You don't know pain.  A husband cheating isn't pain.  A girlfriend leaving isn't pain.  It's the resolution of a malfunctioning relationship. It's a new opportunity.  However, a mother who is not emotionally available?  A mother who has spent her life saying, "But I suffered all my life and I deserve something for me", who cannot see that, sometimes you must truly give to those closest to yourself in order to stop suffering.  Sometimes you must focus on creating true quality of living within your own immediate family in order to realize that you actually have something valuable without all the luxuries.  You must protect those closest to you, not push them away, ignoring and neglecting.  You can't drop your mother and shop for another.  And I think that's the point no one is understanding.  

Ok.  I'm getting the whole story wrong.  I did take charge of the situation.  I was the man of the house at the age of 5.  Without my father there, I sat in his chair at the table. Actually, I stood up on that chair unzipped my fly and I placed my penis on the table like the judge's mallot "Order in the Court!  Order in the Court!"  Do you think I'm inventing?  This is not fiction my friend.  The slice of pizza was a metaphor. But ask my mother about the whipping out of my penis at the dinner table not long after my father died.  Was it a Judge's mallot?  Or was it a symbolic gesture, a prediction of the years to come? an offering for sacrifice upon the altar of our lives where I remember seeing my father get up from the table, run to the bathroom and then hear him vomit horrendously.  Do I hear his vomitting when I am sick and bent over the toilet?  Thank god I don't have those experiences regularly.  Did I tell you about one of the only times I've had a feaver in my life... Maybe they should have chopped the damn thing off and dressed me up like Shirley Temple.  Maybe then they would have accepted me in their tiny kindom...  In their dolls house.  Sheri didn't like dolls.  She wanted to be like her father. She didn't like that my father had a real son...  Sheri cut the grass with the ride on lawnmower.  My mother cut that same grass with that same mower.  However, when I said that I wanted to mow the lawn, my mother yelled, "For the life of me!  You're going to chop off your foot!"  Am I inventing this MOM?  Is this what you want to hear James?  Is this personal enough?  

Well I can bleed for you if you want.  I can bring you into my deepest most painful realms, not of the mind, not of the Valentines Hearts in all of our mythological chests, but below the skin, where all the worst things are felt and hidden.  Do you want that?  But can I go there?  You don't need to feel my suffering in Mexico.  We all seek the repetition of the suffering we knew in childhood, if we truly knew it, in order to improve upon the past, to master the situation, even if subconsciously.  If you didn't suffer in childhood, chances are you won't truly suffer as an adult. THANK GOD FOR YOU!  My relationship with the racist and invidioso Mexicans is only a reproduction of my elementary school experiences.  And here I have come out on top.   The suffering I haven't repeated is that which I suffered with my family, which is not played out by Margarita.  Yes, there was a time...  But I'm not that timid and shy child I had been growing up with my sisters and my mother in Branchburg, with my neighbors with my elementary through high school peers.  However, they continue being the same people as adults.  Margarita said to me a month or so ago and she has apologized since, not because she was wrong, but because she didn't want to hurt me I hate to say this, but truthfully I am sure that your mother is so relieved that you do not return to the U.S. It's much easier for her to have you out of reach, visiting for 4 or 5 days every 1.8 years.  I'm sure all of them feel that way.  Did I smack her in the face for saying that? No. I felt a slight sinking of the facial muscles around my mouth and I pondered her all too perceptive statement.  

I don't have 4 nieces.  They are my sister's daughters.  Do I care about them?  Do I care about the children of unknowns living in the next town over?  Do I care about the neighbor's children?  Who are my sisters?  How were they?  Now let's enter their hearts, lifting up their true memory feelings, instead of the illusions they place in their minds when they know that they have a brother buried in an unknown land far away, when they say to their daughters that those girls have a long lost uncle.  Do they tell their daughters, your uncle metaphorically smells bad. Will they tell them, "Honestly, I would have prefered a true girl's club without the intrusion of this smelly boy..." Is it not ironic that my sisters don't have sons?  

And yes, I have thought long and hard about the irony that I don't have children.  And I will be frank with you.  I can't imagine the strain brought upon my mind and my spirit by the concern that I will do unto them as was done unto I by not only my mother, but by my Uncle Stan and who the hell knows who else those days that my Aunt Esta was bending over infront of my 4-year-old eyes with her nighty and no panties, showing off that "orange" tuft of hair showing between her bare ass cheeks.  Do I invent these memories?  Tell me, why would a 4-year-old remember that?  I don't remember being sexually abused.  That memory does not exist, although my PTSD specialist said that my early adolescent behavior screams that I was sexually abused...  Is there are reason why my aunt dropped her pre-school education career so early?  But this is just conjecture.  My cousin Seth, the one who insisted that his father beat the shit out of me "when Uncle Al" was dying in Memorial Sloan Kettering insisted on having me arrested for saying these things about his parents in 2006.  But, what if he had kept his mouth shut that April 2000 evening at the Passover table on Old York Road?  I insisted that it was Beth who was beaten...  I don't have that memory either therapist so and so... Was Seth inventing?  Why say such things about his father? And he said it with a smile, a reminiscence...  

I'm sorry.  But I've gotta go.  I can't continue on with this for now.  I don't like the coldness I feel seeping below my skin.  

Turning "things" on their heads for a better understanding; part III of a Letter to the J-Pouch Community on improving "the Experience"..

Note: This is a response to a response to what I wrote on the J-Pouch group.  My statements are responses to statements by the other person, such as my statement about the anus...  The person towards whom I'm responding is also a J-Poucher and is a registered nurse.  Her comments are very interesting and informative.  I don't share her comments for different reasons. If you are interested in what preceded my response regarding any of my statements, I will be more than happy to share those ideas with you.

I've also read that epithelial cells or the lining of different parts of the digestive tract can become similar to other parts... But, what I was reading was not positive, since lets say the stomach lining became similar to that of the colon before the person developed stomach cancer there... No, I'm not thinking that what you said is bad. Just that, yes, it may be possible that the digestive tract can evolve to take on functions of other parts... I've been curious if the J-Pouch absorbs the B vitamins and Vitamin C, since it's still alive and was part of the Ileum. Most of our B vitamins and Vitamin C are absorbed in the Ileum. I would also like to know just how much of the Ileum is used, since some people believe having the J-Pouch surgery causes distinct Vitamin deficiencies... I also wonder why the anus must be smaller and less flexible after the J-Pouch surgery. Is it intentionally minimized due to the concern that the J-Pouch creates increased diarrhea? I lived without a large intestine and with a rectum from 1983 until 2001 when I had my rectum removed. Living without a colon was a bathroom and diet issue, but only minimal. In fact, I don't remember such issues now living with the J-Pouch, which created such a difficult difference. Who knows? Maybe the rectum also absorbed excess fluids... Although I thought that was the responsibility of the large intestine.


I'm very familiar with scar tissue... A month after having my colectomy in 1983, I was rushed to Sloan Kettering since my scar tissue was strangling my small intestine. The doctors said that had they not opened me up again and removed the scar tissue, I would have died in 6 days. Truthfully, the second surgery was much more extensive than the first one. When you look at my radiology photos of my lower abdomine, the pelvic region, it looks as if there is the top half of a small basketball in my gut... What it is is the scar tissue that filled the area where once was my rectum and possibly large intestine... It's like dark cloud coverage or as if I had swallowed a basketball...


But I'm an FAP/Gardner's person with an 11 year history of pouchitis. And it seems that removing the wheat, vegetable oils and most of the refined carbs, I've removed the issue which, with all of my reading and investigations, points to issues of inflamation.


My contention with medicine, science, doctors, and people who complain about weight issues or issues with discomfort etc is that it seems that no one is truly looking at the problem. And I believe it is intentional, for many different reasons, which I won't go into, since it deals with social-psychology or psychology alone, politics and economics... My concern is that if one does not isolate things, they will never truly know if it was or was not due to... The studies connect heart disease with "sugar", cancer with "sugar"... but the "authorities" are saying FAT. Fat doesn't cause inflamation... Excess sugar in the blood does... Did I mention the connection between Diabetes and Heart Disease and Diabetes with Breast Cancer an Diabetes with Alzheimers Disease? I'm sure I did. What do all of these diseases have in common? Lack of control of insulin or too much glucose in the blood stream. For me, it seems simple, you change the diet towards glucose attached to fiber (removing the refined carbs) and watch and wait. And, maybe you'll also find that you have a better experience with your digestive system... Did you know that before the 20th century most non-European, non middle-class communities were free of chronic disease and obesity? Until the past 40 years chronic disease such as heart disease, Cancer, Diabetes, and Alzheimers were consider "diseases of affluence". The communities without access to refined carbohydrates, such as white rice, wheat flour and table sugar didn't experience those diseases, nor did they experience hypertension, cavities, gastric ulcers, gastritis or colitis... This is why I "harp" on the possibility of changing the diet so that we can eat fresh fruits and fresh and cooked vegetables for their nutrients without worrying about diarrhea, constipation/blockages and Pouchitis.


I live in Mexico coming on 12 years and don't have the economy or time for flying to the U.S. for seeking FAP/Gardners or J-Pouch specialists. Here in Mexico no one truly knows any of these issues. Since I last became horribly ill in 2006, I've been basically forced to investigate how diet causes my experiences or relieves those experiences. I was diagnosed with gastritis that made me look pregnant, two stomach ulcers, duodenitis, a hyper inflamed gall bladder full of gallstones (an issue with Gardners), hiatal hernia, hypertension, high triglycerides and high cholesterol, among issues of acid reflux, diarrhea, constant blockages and pouchitis. The doctors suggested I have my gallbladder removed. But I didn't have the money. Instead, I started researching...


Two years ago, I visited with a GastroEnterologist who had met my surgeon in Chicago and claimed he understood the J-Pouch and FAP/Gardners. I was complaining of discomforts on different sides of my abdomin and visited him for an Upper Endoscopy. But, he claimed that I didn't need one (with Gardners, the standard practice is every 2 years, since we can develop cancer of the Duodenum and Stomach Cancer, along with Pancreatic Cancer, Adrenal Cancer, Cancer of the Bile Duct and Gallbladder Cancer). Although I complained of discomforts and that I had gallstones and stomach ulcers, he had no interest in giving me an UpperEndoscopy or ordering an Ultrasound... Instead, he gave me a prescription for B12 injections because he claimed that with a J-Pouch I don't absorb the B vitamins... At the same time I was experiencing increasing muscle fatigue/pain while running. We were in the end of November/beginning of December. Inspired by what he mentioned about the Ileum and Vitamins B, I started investigating what is absorbed where in the digestive tract and how that may affect us... What vitamin deficiencies could cause muscle fatigue... And I stumbled across Vitamin D deficiency, Potassium deficiency etc... I immediately went to the nearest clinic and ordered various blood tests and an ultrasound. Would you believe that the ultrasound disclosed that I had removed my gallstones without surgery and by a dietary home remedy? My potassium came back normal. But, my Vitamin D was low... The vitamin D deficiency made it virtually impossible for me to run for another 1.3 years.


During the two years between the visit with that GastroEnterologist and the one who just did the Upper Endoscopy and order the x-rays of my digestive tract, I developed other concerns that appeared as Hypothyroidism (thyroid cancer is prevalent within Gardners; my younger sister developed it at the age of 26), the inability to lose weight with regular exercise although I controlled my fat, dairy and meat intake (I've never had a sweet tooth or been a soda drinker), what seems like peripheral neuropathy from my right shoulder to my right fingers (like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, I blamed on my baking endeavor for 4 years between 2003-2007), failing eyesight (although undiagnosable) and memory problems. I went back to the drawing board, returned to my readings on hypothyroidism and was surprised to see all of the above listed below the disease... and immediately visited with an Endocrinologist and had my thyroids tested... It was clear that he didn't believe my problem was hypothyroidism. He was focussing much on my weight (which can have so much to do with hypothyroidism) and my blood pressure (which can have so much to do with a vitamin D deficiency) and suggested a very low calorie diet. Fortunately, at the same time I came across the idea that calories have nothing to do with obesity, but the amount of refined carbs, blood-insulin levels and inflamation (that obesity causes inflamation also and causes decreased energy and not the other way around) and designed my very own diet. The thyroid tests came back normal and I had dropped around 10 pounds by the time we met again a month later... The endocrinologist asked me how I took to his diet and I responded, "I put it aside and designed my own" and explained what it intailed... And this is where my original piece begins...


But Rachel and others who have gotten this far... when I designed my new eating style (I don't like the word "diet" since diet is seen as temporary or a fad meant strictly for decreasing weight), I was NOT thinking about the J-Pouch or Gardners etc... I had come to believe that the diarrhea/blockage/Pouchitis/sleep disturbances issues were just a fact of my life with the J-Pouch; a trade-off or a sacrifice of comfort (and certain aspects of dignity) for preventing cancer and almost immediate mortality in exchange for living another 13 years; I've outlived my father 11 years now. I had no idea that I would remove most of the other issues concerning us the J-Pouchers regarding diet of health conducting foods much higher in dietary fiber... And that's why I decided to share with everyone... because I believe that it's not enough having the information and the related experience for myself. But, what I am certain of listening to so many J-Pouchers' concerns, "problems" and histories with the so-called expert medical community specializing in J-Pouches and Gastro-Intestinal diseases and reading the incredibly sparce and limited scientific literature on J-Pouches and Gardners Syndrome etc. is that what I've stumbled across most J-Pouchers are unaware of...


About comparing our small bowels with those of normal people's... I can't compare my body with the 3 other family members of my generation who inherited FAP/Gardners... Everyone's gene or allele expressed itself differently. I've never had cancer. My younger sister developed thyroid cancer although her FAP presented with much fewer polyps than mine and hers went away after the colectomy. Now she developed rectal cancer at the age of 43 (I had mine removed at the age of 32) and has a J-Pouch since March... She's also a refined carb addict/sweet tooth... and has a tolerance to alcohol I never had. One cousin has repeated surgeries for removing desmoid tumors. No one else has them. I have osteomas. No one else has them... My other cousin died of Brain Cancer at the age of 16...


I've read extensively about Celiac Disease, Gluten Intolerance, Wheat Alergies, issues with FODMAPs and Irritable Bowel Syndrome... "Discovered" the connection between wheat and Lymphoma... My landwomen's (two sisters) older brother suddenly developed lymphoma, destroying his jaw and one of his legs within two months. He's on chemotherapy for two years now. I asked one of the women if anyone of their family members had celiac-like issues. "NO"... Then I asked if her older brother ate much bread (I knew that the whole family drank much Coca Cola products). She responded, "AND HOW! If a normal person eats 1 baghette, he eats 3! If there isn't any in the house, he sends someone out to the store..." I asked her if his doctors checked his small intestine. She said yes and that there was nothing wrong with it... Two months later I mentioned this statement to her older sister who was much closer to their brother. I said, "I'm surprised that his doctors discovered his small intestine totally normal, considering what I've read..." and she exclaimed, "Are you kidding! The reason why they haven't removed him from chemo is because they discovered tumors in his small intestine... they keep coming back." And I asked, "and his doctors haven't mentioned anything about sugar and wheat products?" NOPE. They didn't know about it... although they are oncologists specializing in Lymphoma. Check any medical center/medical school website in the U.S. for Lymphoma and you will find a restriction against sugars and wheat products...


But what does this have to do with US and Them? And who is normal and who isn't... How do you know who is normal? And how do you know that most people aren't affected in different ways by the same thing?


But for one reason or another certain information that may aid many people (in different ways for different reasons) is not circulating seriously in the "American" medical and scientific communities... meaning that it doesn't filter down to us as patients...

Turning "things" on their heads for a better understanding; part I of a Letter to the J-Pouch Community on improving "the Experience"..

After suffering at least 12 years with J-Pouch related issues/discomforts, it seems that I've encountered a solution.

Before I go into this very interesting topic, I must inform you that I just spent 18 hours without eating or ingesting fluids and endured 8 hours in the radiologist's office having x-rays of my small intestine and J-Pouch (routine procedure). So, I'm a bit drained; meaning that the following description of what I've done over the past 9 months will be semi-brief. Last week I had my first upper-endoscopy in 8.5 years and the gastroenterologist ordered the x-rays since he found polyps in my duodenum.

That said...

Before March 2014, I suffered greatly from Pouchitis and bathroom-related sleep disturbances (name it, I suffered it; to spare you the details). I awakened in the night on the average of 3 times; leading to Adrenal Fatigue that mimics hypothyroidism due to cortisol dumping. I weighed at least 33 pounds more and couldn't drop the weight with exercise and with controlling calorie intake/fat consumption. I couldn't eat fruit, vegetables (raw and cooked), seeds or nuts without having issues with diarrhea/blockage (at the same time). I blamed it all on the fibre... and bought a Vitamix Blender believing that would solve the problem. Truthfully, it didn't. What I believe was the problem was chronic inflamation. Today I can eat anything natural I want without suffering the consequences, since the fibre wasn't the culprit.

In March I removed most refined carbs (simple carbs) and removed all wheat products (I don't believe that dramatic wheat-related health issues are limited to those with Celiac Disease nor are they limited to gluten in wheat). I do consume added sugar (maximally 24 grams/6 teaspoons per day) in my coffee or occasional lime/Flaxseed water... I eat occasional corn tortillas and occasional sweet potatoes or plantains (I discovered a wonderful flourless pancake recipe that utilizes blended plantains instead of flour). I do not limit my fruit intake, especially if it is high in fibre, especially if it is high in vitamin C. Aside from the occasional corn tortilla, I'm not eating corn on the cob or corn kernels. I'm also not eating potatoes. One more thing; I've greatly decreased my usage/consumption of commercial vegetable oils, including Canola, since they are very high in pro-inflamatory Omega 6 fatty acids; we obtain enough Omega 6 in our diet of animal fat and vegetables. The vegetable oils throw us way over the top and create an extreme Omega 6/Omega 3 imbalance. I don't drink sodas or fruit juices, since fruit juices often have more added sugar than do sodas. (Just a note: commercial cerials and flavored yogurts generally have more sugar than do sodas or cakes; just in case you thought you were giving your children healthier food in the name of Dannon or Kelloggs...) I'm not drinking alcoholic beverages, since alcohol affects the liver just as does fructose (Another note: Parents, if you thought only alcoholics suffered from fatty liver disease that converts to cirosis, today you will be seeing an epidemic in fructose related non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in children, adolescents and young adults. Have you noticed pot-bellied children?... 6-year-old boys and girls with beer-bellies for instance...)

Without exercise, both my wife and I lost around 22 pounds in 3 months. Then we found that we could exercise more easily and withstand longer periods of exercise than in the past. We also found that we endured much longer periods without eating. Diets high in refined carbs cause hunger on the average of every 2 hours. Diets high in protein cause hunger on the average of every 5 hours and diets high in fat cause hunger on the average of every 7 hours.

When we all but removed the refined carbs from our diet we increased greatly our consumption of fat and complex carbs. We always had a diet high in protein. But, without "cutting" the protein with simple carbs (rice, bread, pasta, potatoes, tortillas) we realized that we must cut it with fresh fruits and vegetables, which was a severe worry for me, considering the havoc fibre reeped upon my digestive tract. After 9 months of this incredible experiment, I've realized that what caused the issues was NOT the fibre or the fresh fruit and fresh and cooked vegetables... It was the refined carbs, the wheat products and the commercial (Industrial) vegetable oils.

In 9 months I've lowered greatly my triglycerides, my blood-glucose and my total cholesterol, while raising my HDL cholesterol... while eating much animal protein and animal fat (especially eggs and cheese). Due to work intensity between late September and early November I spent 7 weeks without any exercise and with an increased consumption of animal protein and fat, cheese and eggs and noticed a decrease in cholesterol, glucose and Uric Acid (Uric Acid is supposedly related to high consumption of animal protein and considered a risk in both gout, rheumatoid arthritis and kidney disease). And I didn't gain weight with the 7 week hiatus from exercise.

I cannot over-stress a very important point: calorie counting and lowfat dieting has absolutely nothing to do with health and weightloss. More accurately: I don't worry about my calorie count or fat consumption (animal fats from chicken, beef, cheese, yogurt, cream, butter...) and I have blood tests every 2 months and my wife's and my weight measures and physical appearance as the testiment. Daily exercise increases muscle mass and may prevent weight loss, although the body becomes trimmer and more attractive. However, if you are concerned about being able to tell people that you continue losing weight and you don't... you must maintain faith in how you look and feel and forget about the numbers you believe they seek for truly believing you.

All this said, most importantly is the fact that I sleep through the night and don't suffer blockage/diarrhea or pouchitis.

Turning "things" on their heads for a better understanding; part II of a Letter to the J-Pouch Community on improving "the Experience"...

Note:  This is a response to various responses on the J-Pouch group refering to the concern about increased fiber and constipation etc.  Truthfully, the responses were very appreciative.  However, there exists a tendency towards disconfidence related towards non-pharmaceutical solutions... although most J-Pouchers, especially those with IBS and Crohns, are extremely dependent upon the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry, although without receiving adequate relief...  I think of those with Ulcerative Colitis and IBD who suffered horribly, extremely dependent upon anything the medical community would suggest, who in the end (usually in their 20s) were left to no other resort but to have their colons and rectums removed and replaced with a J-Pouch.  What if the remedy for THEM (I don't mention Crohns or FAP/Gardners, because the causes of the inflamations etc may be a bit different), was a dramatic change in diet away from what EVERYONE around them was eating... a vote of confidence and strength that they would endure not being socially "correct" and avoiding the commercially popular "pass times" everyone suddenly and increasingly put in their mouths?  Inconvenience...  But, suffering what they suffered all these years is a bit less convenient... having the colon and rectum removed is a hell of an inconvenience...  Your body is socially accepted in your circles, when you are with your friends and family as they expect of you... But, when you are alone, you are hating your body... living with your body.  And those who socially accepted you don't know anything about your body and what it experiences... what it does to you... how it affects your psychology, your work, your sleep, your concentration, your ability to focus upon things a little less personal and, in ways, in the long run a bit more important.  How it affects your sexual relationships... how it makes you "a miserable bitch"...  All the energy consumed by the suffering, the performing with lack of sleep, with vitamin-mineral deficiencies, trying to focus on what you MUST focus upon and the energy consumed trying to get back or keep "on target"... Only you understand this...  Martin Luther King Jr repeated how many times "I have a dream" in his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial terminating the first massive civil rights march on Washington in 1965 if I'm correct and, even if we didn't hear more than 3+ words of that speech, we know the name...  And I find myself beginning a speech to myself repeatedly with the words "I wish..."  And that sentence can be terminated in so many ways, such as "I wish I could have used all of that energy wasted upon responding to the suffering caused by... and dedicating it to something a bit less personal and a bit more productive or constructive..."  I elected against writing "valuable", "important" etc... because responding to discomforts, worries etc is valuable and important.  However, maybe if I understood profoundly how many aspects of our modern diet affect us physically, epigenetically, mentally etc., maybe I could have avoided much wasted time and energy and been able to have become more... constructed more... pursued more... more what?  Interests that generate...  Generate what?  Running to the bathroom every so many minutes in the night... or waiting for the urge to pass in order to continue doing what ever it is I am doing at the moment, is distracting, disconcentrating...  Not eating healthfully because eating healthfully means abdominal discomforts and much sleep lost, time spent in the bathroom... Not being able to travel or be in public spaces or participate in eco-sports or eco-tourism or staying over night in someone else's house without worrying horribly about bathroom related risks... consumes energy and attention that could have been directed towards more "useful" ends...  

But, then again, I wouldn't have stumbled across what I've stumbled across that may help many people.  I don't offer a service.  I'm not creating a movement.  I'm just sharing very useful information.

Ironic... Ironic is the idea that eating healthfully is a risk, causes problems, causes lack of health... Ironic.  Avoiding foods high in nutrients that help concentration, mental energy, sleep, stamina, production of energy, improve mood or create stable moods, tissue health, strengthen the immune system, create circulatory health etc... helps you progress healthfully into the future because it helps prevent mishaps, bad decisions, future diseases etc because they immediately make you miserable... Is ironic.  After a day of happily and enthusiastically eating healthfully, I found myself forced to eat unhealthfully... things that did not cause blockage or caused slight-diarrhea (J-Pouch diarrhea is much more comfortable than J-Pouch constipation...) You know that you will succeed rapidly with what you went to the bathroom to do.  You flush the toilet and you're back within the project upon which you were focussing... and not worrying about not having succeeded in the bathroom, irritated, uncomfortable; at any moment your lower abdomine will tell you you must urgently run to the bathroom and struggle there for a while, usually to not sufficient avail and continue the process... With the exception of night, when it is not convenient awakening every 2 or 3 hours to go to the bathroom, although successfully; those sleep disturbances cause other serious health problems.  And if you manage to sleep through the night with J-Pouch "Diarrhea", you awaken with the bed stained, to put it lightly...   

But, it's really not only about the J-Pouch. It's also about the small intestine...  Eating healthfully MUST NOT be considered the cause of lack of health... 

Constipation... that's why I hardly ever ate fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds... for years, never apples... I also hated the skin.  However...

Removing the wheat products, most industrial vegetable oils (in industrial I mean industrially fabricated, such as Mazola, Canola... non-virgin olive oils... and the such.  Udo Erasmus explains extremely clearly the issue in his book "Fats that Heal; Fats that kill"), and most other refined carbs along with potatoes and most corn products I removed the inflamation that causes the blockage.

When you remove the skin of an apple, you remove most of the nutrients.  So, if you don't want to eat the apple straight, blending it makes a lot of sense... if you don't have problems with those textures...

We are "special" people with extremely unique experiences, and the J-Pouch specialists and the Colitis, IBS, Crohns and FAP/Gardners "experts" don't live with these experiences, and being hard working human beings pressed for time, they don't have the time, energy or money for truly understanding what happens with the patient who had their colon and rectum removed etc.  It is up to each of us to try and think "out of the box" or backwards and forwards, turning what we were told to believe or what we were told is normal or healthy on its head and start looking at things from a different perspective.  Sometimes easy responses or easy fixes (represented greatly by the Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Occidental Medicine) create much less recovery or much slower understanding of the situation.

If most of the problem with modern 20th/21st century chronic illness is related to inflamation, then maybe we should consider best what causes inflamation and what the inflamation causes.

"Itis".  Do you know what that signifies?  Inflamation.  Pouchitis, Colitis, Duodenitis, Gastritis, Esophagitis...  The inflamation of the brain is... Meningitis; "an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges." 

So, imagine the J-Pouch or the Small Intestine inflamed and then imagine ruffage or large inflexible particles, such as nuts or seeds or broccoli etc passing through narrowed inflamed passageways, especially if those passageways have billions of folds or tentacles (cilia) that jut out towards the center of the passageway (if you don't suffer from Celiac Disease)...  Now, imagine those passageways uninflamed...

Think about it.  Why would we have problems with blockage when healthy people with colons and rectums don't?  Where is the blockage occurring?  In the J-Pouch? or in the Small Intestine?  They have Small Intestines too...  And, the J-Pouch is an increased reservoir replacing the rectum...  our colectomies removed transit time and distance or space for creating risks for blockage or constipation... We don't have that reservoir (colon) for slowing things down and removing excess water.  We shouldn't be the constipated ones... 

or maybe we should turn the issue on its head and ask what it is about our illnesses/syndromes that causes the blockage in the first place... It isn't the natural and healthy produce we place in our mouths...  Absolutely illogical.  Although I imagine most of us have spent years blaming suffering on Lettuce, Spinach, Cabbage, Mushrooms, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrots, Beets, Kale, Swiss Chard, sweet potatoes, potatoes, winter squash, nopales (cactus paddles; which is ironic, since they are the #1 vegetable in the world for decreasing inflamation), Nuts, Seeds, Pineapple, Bananas, Papaya, non-squeezed oranges/Grapefruits, guavas, (I just named most of what caused me horrible bathroom problems for the past 11 years... which includes horribly embarassing night-time "incontinence"; when you actually manage to enter REM sleep after spending how much time in the bathroom straining, wishing you could pull out with a hook what is there telling you you must run to the bathroom every 5-10 minutes and then seemingly laughing in your face..., and either the liquid passing around the blockage and staining the sheets and irritating your skin... or maybe something "relaxed" and you awaken "in the process..." your "significant other" sleeping unperturbed alongside your "mess", your momentary sleep destroyed at 4am...)

This is NOT a joke.  I'm NOT an outsider preaching to you.  

No one truly shares their horrible experience with others (in order for others to know that they are not the only ones living these VERY PERSONAL difficulties.  Afterall that is what these groups are for; support, increased understanding...), not even on the J-Pouch communities... (only surgeries and setbacks; it's difficult to mention constipation--we hear the snickering towards the back of the 4th grade classroom if you know what I mean)...  

We've lived our lives as outsiders with our experiences... although it is not our fault, we suffer horrible taboos... What men talk about J-Pouch-caused sexual dysfunctions?  Incontinence?  What is worse to share with the ONLY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO COULD POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND US and what we are experiencing...? But we don't go there.  We can talk to doctors about this.  Women don't remove their blouses and brazieres in public.  But, if the person who will do the mamograph suddenly appears to be a "strange" man, they can become topless...  I run shirtless in the city park (for Vitamin D) and people look at me strange.  The children yell to their parents, "LOOK there's a man running naked in the park!" although I'm running with shorts...  And I feel bad.  And I feel bad when those shorts slip down a little bit and show a bit of my hip or upper buttocks...  But, in the radiology room I quickly learn to not worry about the fact that the hospital gown is slightly open in back showing off almost everything, especially since they made me lay down on my stomach...  We can tell these things to the doctors, since we believe they understand and because we believe they've heard and seen it all.  But they are humans who have NOT experienced what we experience.  And, until one truly experiences what we experience profoundly and possibly on a constant basis and truly what worries and irritates us, "they don't know NOTHIN'"...  

But, I have stumbled across something... And I am sleeping through the night NO MATTER WHAT TIME I ATE (and I eat a lot and I often eat an hour or maximally 2 hours before I go to sleep)... And, I've stopped defocating in the bed...  And I can eat almost all fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, cooked or raw etc without suffering as I had...  And I don't take anti-inflamatories or metamucil or milk of magnesia or or or...