Day: May 23, 2013

Turkey Tracks: Talula Is an Artist

Turkey Tracks:  May 23, 2013

Talula is An Artist

I really love the fact that my four older grandchildren are exposed to learning how to create art.

I am so glad that their schools recognize how important creative expression is when it takes the form of art created with the hands, with paint and glue and messiness, not just with the heart and mind, such as is true with words.

Talula, though, has been an artist for some time.  She’ll be seven in September, but for years now she has had the practice of getting up early to draw, color, and create.  When she comes to Maine and is “on vacation,” she spends a lot of time making art.  I put up a table for her and try to keep the house supplied with paper, crayons, colored pencils, and so forth.  They all love to make art, but Talula NEEDS to make art.  It’s going to be be really interesting to see where this need to create art takes Talula in the years to come.

I always ask Talula to show me her recent art when I visit her in Charleston.

Here’s the best of what she showed me this last trip:

Talula made “the girl” with rose petals, pine straw, sticks, beans, a ribbon, and pasta.  This girl has a new form from earlier “girls”–she is stockier and does not have the long neck Talula usually draws.

Talula and her art

Here’s maybe a better picture:

Talula's girl

She has two other  motifs I’ve seen her doing for the past few years.  A girl with a pony-tail hairdo and a colorful rainbow.

Talula's girl 2

Here, I think her use of background color–and her patience with putting it all in–is interesting.

This girl can often have a long, skinny neck with bands of color and texture.  I have one of those on my quilt-room wall and would like to make a quilt version of it for her birthday.  (The road to hell is paved with good intentions.)

Here’s the iconic rainbow she does–which I like because, again, it shows she’s not afraid of color.  And, the rainbow is about something that she’s imprinted on herself artistically.  Like the long-necked girl.

Talula's rainbow

She made a rainbow on Tara Derr Webb’s ipad (53 Paper App, which is fabulous) when she heard John had died:

Lula drawing

I have saved it.

Interesting Information: Portland, Oregan, Citizens Reject Fluoride

Interesting Information:  May 23, 2013

Portland, Oregon, Citizens Reject Fluoride

For the FOURTH time since 1956 Portland, Oregon, citizens have rejected adding fluoride to their water supply.  This time, by a 60-40 percent margin.  And, despite “public health experts” support of the proposal to add fluoride to the water.

Who are these “public experts”?  Are they local doctors?  Are they public health officials?

One thing these “experts” are NOT is people who have read the most recent government report assessing the use of fluoride in the water.  That report raises all kinds of warning flags about putting fluoride in the public water systems.  And they are NOT people who are aware that even the American Dental Association is telling people not to use fluoridated public water in baby formula because the dose is much to great for infants.  There isn’t a geriatric association to warn senior citizens with health issues not to drink fluoridated public water as the dose is likely too great for them.

Let’s step back a moment and remember that “public health experts” who are MDs and those trained as public health officials are NOT scientists.  MDs and dentists are PRACTITIONERS, not scientists.  They are not trained to vet the array of scientific studies about fluoride (or lots of other thorny health issues, like, for instance, vaccines or what to eat).  They know only what they have been taught or have been told.  Give them wrong information, and they are, as much as you and I, caught in a bad information loop that is not based on any reputable science.  And like most people who are working long hours, they do not have time to do extensive, deep research anyway.

Let’s also note that it is absolutely irresponsible for these “public health experts” people to publicly support something like putting fluoride into the water–a dangerous chemical whose dosage cannot be controlled–without first doing RECENT research, which would include AT LEAST looking at the most recent government report, which was done by a panel with the kinds of credentials that ensure that panel members know how to vet the evidence.

SCIENTISTS are, thus, telling us that fluoride in the water is dangerous and that it does not prevent cavities.  The correlation between diet and cavities is stronger than the correlation between fluoride and cavity prevention.  Remember, anyway, that correlation is NOT CAUSATION.  Causation has to be proved, and with fluoride, it NEVER HAS BEEN PROVED.  If you have cavities, you are likely eating too much sugar or have other malabsorption issues going on.  (Remember that all those grains these same “public health experts” have us eating turn right into sugar in your body.)  And, I’m beginning to realize that cavities can actually be healed with a good diet of nutrient-dense foods.  How’s that for a surprise?

There is a good book about fluoride from three scientists who know how to vet the evidence.

Tim Boyd reviewed THE CASE AGAINST FLUORIDE:  HOW HAZARDOUS WASTE ENDED UP IN OUR DRINKING WATER AND THE BAD SCIENCE AND POWERFUL POLITICS THAT KEEP IT THERE, by Paul Connett, PhD, James Beck, MD, PhD, and H.S. Micklem, DPhil, in the spring 2011  WAPF journal, “Wise Traditions.”  Boyd noted the authors’ statement that the pea-sized dab of toothpaste contains as much fluoride as one glass of fluoridated water.  Boyd asked if adults call the Poison Control Center after drinking the recommended eight glasses of
water per day since they would have exceeded EPA’s daily safety dose for fluoride.

Don’t have time to read the book?  That’s ok, because I read it for you.  I have three essays on this blog summarizing the main evidence and the authors’ arguments:  Mainely Tipping Points Essays, Nos. 34, 35, 36.

Here’s the url for the NY Times article about the Portland vote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/oregon-fluoride-measure-in-portland-is-defeated.html?_r=1&

GO PORTLAND!!!