Straight up, y'all, I was really disappointed by this book.  It was lying on a cart at the library at the end of an aisle, as if it was calling to me!  One glance at the title and I was hooked.  Who wouldn't want to… um… do it yourself psychic power?

Nonsensical title aside, the cover promises "practical tools and techniques for awakening your natural gifts."  From this I expected, you know.  Practical tools and techniques.

Instead, O'Sullivan spends fully half of the book explaining preparations you should take.  Meditation, opening chakras - basically, an awful lot of "sitting quietly and thinking about things."  I imagine that if you really did follow all of the rituals and proscribed meditations, you could easily spend every day fully booked with that kind of thing.


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Potato HeadI just realized that a friend of mine is an EQ genius at relationships-she recently returned from a trip to tropics with her husband and discovered a way to stop any minor arguments on their trip. They’ve both traveled before, both for business trips and small adventures around this country and others, and she was concerned before the trip began that they might fight or bicker about where to go or what to do.


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If I believed in biblical things, I would say that this is the time of Job in my life, but on a much-smaller scale. Maybe I am operating under the principle of Murphy’s Law, which states that, “Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.” I’ve decided to take a cautiously optimistic approach to life and my spell of minor troubles and believe that if the universe is indeed dishing me a few too many sides of bad luck, I’m going to take it as a semi-positive sign and believe that at least I am somewhat important- being totally ignored by the Fates would be worse, wouldn’t it?


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Sub-titled "And Never Feel Powerless Again," this book takes a "command and conquer" approach to life.  The more I read, the more I realized that… I don't really have a need to learn how to get anyone to do anything.  I'm not a sales person, and I no longer work in a corporate environment where winning arguments and driving the conversation is important.  Lucky me!

I checked this book out for a laff, expecting to find a lot of cheesy salesman style Jedi mind trick advice.  My biggest surprise was that most of the book was actually fairly reasonable.  


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Naomi Campbell

As the Guardian points out HERE, sometimes murder and mutilation are too little to garner international interest and attention; the testimony of a fashion model is the missing answer for the War Times Tribunal to focus attention on the trial against former Liberian President Charles Taylor. If you note that the irony in this is tinged with bitterness, that is the intent.

Charles Taylor is being tried on 11 different war crimes including murder, rape, and sexual slavery. His trade of “blood diamonds” was used to fund the rebels from Sierra Leone.


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 David Icke is a fascinating figure.  He began his career as a sports commentator for the BBC, and a Green Party spokesman.  Then after a fateful encounter with a psychic, Icke had a spiritual awakening.

In an interview that was ostensibly to be about something sports-related, Icke announced to the world that "he was the son of God, and predicted that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.  From this rapid turnabout, David Icke became one of the most prolific and disturbing futurists in the movement which he dubbed "New Age conspiracism."


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A great Slate article this week about the way that women have traditionally been excluded from medical trials.  Not out of an institutionalized sexism, but from a combination of laziness and fear of harming theoretical fetuses.  The upshot being, we don't really know - from a clinical perspective - what a lot of drugs and surgical procedures do to the female body.

This is a bit of a problem, no?

It should be pretty obvious to all concerned that a woman is not just a man who lacks a penis.  There are significant hormonal differences, and nothing interacts with a drug like hormone levels!  Women and men are different right down to the genetic level.  (Reading about the significant genetic differences between women and men always makes me a little surprised we can even reproduce successfully.)


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While I was researching abortion clinics several years ago for a paper, I called around to see what the costs were and how many women generally obtained abortions from the clinics. I was only able to locate one clinic within driving distance to our county and was astounded to learn that it was a half a day’s drive there. The person I talked to told me that it’s very common to have to drive far to get an abortion in the United States; in fact, at least 4 out of 5 counties do not have access to an abortion provider. Though she couldn’t tell me any information about the clientele—which I understood—she did tell me that the procedure was around $500. Add that to the gas women had to use, plus a night’s lodging (she said you had to come back the next day to finish the procedure in most cases), and then a follow-up visit (and its gas and possible lodging) later, you’re talking around $1,000 for an abortion.

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Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always looked to the sky and was intrigued when a plane flew by.  I’d gaze up and wonder where they were headed, who was on the plane, and when I’d get a chance to get on one.  I was fascinated with the fact that a person could travel so many miles in such a short time.  A person could wake up in Colorado, and fall asleep in Panama.

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I have never heard of this theory before. Lady Gaga in an interview in "Vanity Fair" magazine's September issue, says she is trying to avoid sex because, "I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they're going to take my creativity from me through my vagina," And yes, she is 24-year-old too. And she says that she is she's "perpetually lonely. It's my condition as an artist, I'm quite celibate now."

Well, there it  is. The celibate state is the secret to her success. Celibacy has made her "gaga," or keeps her "gaga."

In the same issue, she confesses her past drug use and tells of how her family, her mom and her grandmother helped her through the crisis to recovery.

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