Every human has four endowments; self-awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination.
These give us the ultimate human freedom.
The power to choose, to respond, to change. –Stephen Covey
Many people do not pray because they do not believe in God, or a God, or any God.
But prayer does not require belief in a God.
Praying for someone to overcome misfortune or ill health or to wish them good fortune only requires that you believe that the good you feel in your heart will connect with the good in the hearts of others.
Richard Edward Ward
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
April 24, 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Richard Edward Ward
Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful.
Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart truly desires must come to you.
– Shakti Gawain
– Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life
Roderick Benns recently interviewed Zachary Beaudoin, an entrepreneur living in Edmonton Alberta, for an article posted on Basic Income Canada Network . He works closely with technology and believes the current economic system is unfit to deal with the shocks that will be created by the coming technological advances.
Benns: From your perspective as an entrepreneur, why is the concept of a basic income guarantee useful to society?
Beaudoin: First I want to explain the benefit of a basic income guarantee that I perceive as a citizen. I believe that a society as a whole benefits from having economic abundance for all. People would spend more time on education, learning, and leisure, become more politically involved and even pursue more fulfilling employment opportunities. The result would be a healthy, engaged, and progressive society with less crime and less suffering.
From an entrepreneurial perspective it is a matter of economics. I’m head of a company that makes video games which requires a market of buyers that have both the disposable income to purchase my product and the time to play. In a system with high, and growing, wealth inequality people buy fewer video games because they either can’t afford to buy as many as they would like or they work very long hours to make ends meet and don’t have the time to play so many video games. You can substitute videos games with any other consumer product or service and you’ll see the same problem. So the more disposable income and free time people have the better for almost any consumer business.
Benns: Do you see automation as a real threat to traditional jobs? If so – and more and more people end up having difficulty finding work — how can we still find a way to make a difference in society? What might still need doing?
Beaudoin: Absolutely. Without diving into too many specifics it is not only automation in the sense that most people today are probably familiar with – a machine replacing a human in some repetitive task. The greatest challenge to our current economic model will come from AI capable of learning to do complex tasks and manage complex networks with a speed and precision that is impossible for any group of humans to match.
I’ll use one example that is probably familiar to most people: the self-driving car that the world’s most powerful tech companies are developing. Most people I speak to think that it just means you can go to a dealership and buy a car that drives itself – no big deal. What will really happen is companies in the transport services sector like taxis, trucking, hauling will replace their human drivers with self-driving systems because the cost will be significantly lower. This will force their competitors to do the same or perish and very quickly (probably inside of a decade) an entire industry sector of jobs will evaporate.
During the same half-century similar new AI technologies will see service industry jobs disappear in the same way and speed. Within this century we could be living in a world where half the work is done by machines. The unemployment rate would likely cause the collapse of our economic system as it exists today. We’ll need a new system that detaches income from labour. I believe that a basic income guarantee is not the solution to this future problem but it would provide our government with a means of absorbing the shock and buying them enough time to solve the problem.
Benns: How is basic income a ‘leveller’ in society. What makes it about equality?
Beaudoin: I don’t think of it in terms of equality I see it as shared prosperity because everyone would benefit. I also believe that it will play a critical role in overcoming the economic shocks we’ll see relatively soon and that it is our moral imperative to implement it.
I have an addiction to sugar and flour products I have come to understand, and apart from getting fat eating foods with flour and sugar I am putting my health at risk.
I have begun to read Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Diet by Dr. Peter Gott and here is an excellent article about the book by Nick Tate.
Counting calories. Checking food labels. Measuring portions. Eating only “approved” items or nothing but grapefruit, cabbage soup, or some other “super” food.
Fad diets are everywhere these days, all promising quick results if only you follow their complicated (or silly) regimens for weight loss.
Peter Gott, M.D.
Peter Gott, M.D., spent his long medical career helping people lose weight. His life’s work culminated in a diet so simple it is described in its entirety by just four words: “No Flour, No Sugar.”
Dr. Gott passed away last year, but in the aftermath there has been renewed interest in his book – “Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Diet” – which became a New York Times best-seller. Dr. Gott is now seen as a prophet of no-gluten eating, preaching the evils of wheat and sugar years before it became fashionable. His diet plan is now more popular than ever.
No Flour, No Sugar Diet’s Key Elements
Gott came up with the concept for his diet after hearing from patients who had a hard time following the complicated requirements of other popular diets. At the center of his diet is the old good-carbs, bad-carbs issue, with a brand-new spin.
“Simple” carbohydrates – found in white wheat flour, cane and beet sugar, and corn and maple syrup – are made up of small sugar molecules the body easily coverts to glucose that fuels cellular functions and provides quick energy. But the metabolic fuel provided by simple carbs is quickly depleted, producing feelings of fatigue and hunger as the body craves more.
By contrast, “complex” carbs – in whole grains (rice, wheat, oats, barley, and corn), legumes, and vegetables – are comprised of complex sugar molecules that take longer to process and lead to more stabilized energy. What’s more, simple carbs in processed foods are stripped of their nutrients, while complex carbs retain them.
How to Get There?
It may seem like a difficult task – eliminating wheat flour and sugar from your diet. But it may not be as difficult as it seems.
Take, for instance, a typical breakfast of a bagel (250 calories) with butter (50) and coffee with sugar (30). Switching to a healthier bowl of oatmeal (100 calories), a cup of skim milk (90), apple (80) and coffee with artificial sweetener (0) adds a nutritional boost to the day’s first meal and cuts calories. For the rest of the day, Gott recommends, combining a variety of healthy options from the following food groups:
Grains: Eat at least three ounces of whole-grain oat cereals or rice.
Fruits and vegetables: Eat more veggies that are dark green (broccoli, spinach, leafy greens) and orange (carrots, sweet potatoes). Dry beans – such as peas, lentils, pinto, and kidney beans – are also healthy choices. Go for a variety fresh, frozen, canned and dry fruits.
Milk: Choose low-fat or fat-free milk, yogurt, and other dairy products or lactose-free foodstuffs.
Meat and proteins: Go lean with meats and poultry, and bake, broil or grill proteins. Try to up your intake of fish, nuts and seeds.
Source: ‘No-Sugar, No-Flour Diet’: Simple Strategy, Big Results
The word depression is tossed around so casually that it is often not heard when it needs to be. Clinical Depression can be life-threatening. Many people who suffer from clinical depression kill themselves.
Most of us feel sad, lonely, or down at times. It is how we often react to loss and the daily struggles of life. However, when these feelings become overwhelming, cause physical symptoms, and last for long periods of time, they can keep you from leading a normal, active life.
Take a looksee at the following 23 signs and symptoms of clinical depression including:
Clinical depression can creep up on us and weave itself into our lives without us being aware. It is insidious.
If parts of the above list resonate with you, or they appear to apply to a loved one or friend, reach out for help. There is help available. In Canada The Mood Disorders Society of Canada (MDSC) is a great place to begin to find help.
My Sa Ta Na Ma / Kirtan Kriya Meditation blog page has been rehabilitated as part of my ongoing blog rehabilitation project.
My blog rehab project involves going through my blog posts and pages editing, rewriting, repairing links to sources, creating and adding graphics.
This is another simple idea developed in my TBI Survivor mind that ends up taking many hours because of course one thing leads to another especially when my creative juices start to flow. and then my drive to do things perfectly kicks in. Yikes.
To rehabilitate the Sa Ta Na Ma / Kirtan Kriya Meditation blog page I ended up working on 7 pages and creating graphics:
I hope you enjoy the pages and posts.