My cell phone died before or during my Sunday ski with Steve on January 23.
Addiction 101
Addictions are rewarding in the judgment of the addicted person, when he or she is engaging in the addictive behaviour. Addicts will pursue their addiction even when they know, or should know, that their addiction is harmful to physical health, economic potential, social status, and to the survival of supportive, trusting, and intimate relationships. Some addictions alter perception and judgment, and all addictions seem to offer such powerful rewards that the disadvantages and side-effects are disregarded. Psychologists have run a variety of interesting and cruel experiments to see exactly what harm rats and monkeys will endure for different rewards. These studies tend to reveal what kinds of sensory and psychological experiences are inherently attractive to mammals and primates and to provide insights into the psychology of value, but they don’t even begin to measure the harm that human beings can endure and inflict under the influence of addictions.
February Beef Stew
The first recipe I tried in the 2005 Canadian Living Slow Cooker cooking special was a success. I adapted it a bit, mainly in spicing and preparation. It makes about 6 good servings. It’s a simple beef vegetable stew.
Odd Man Out
My illness and surgery came at a time when Jan and her family had already decided that I had a problem.
Cardiff Weirdos
Good for giggles. I found this link to a Travel section article in the Guardian online.
“Perhaps I just don’t have a soul. But then, I’m from Cardiff where we don’t have New Agers. Or, if we do, we call them by their other name: weirdos. And although I am almost too perfectly the target demographic – thirtysomething, female, single (marketing-speak for credulous, desperate and liable to spend money on any old rubbish) – I’ve never really got the whole spa thing. Yes, it makes your skin all shiny, but then what’s a loofah for?”
Addiction 100
What is an addiction?
Freedom in the American Dream
An interesting story, courtesy of the BBC World News Web service about a survey of American teens. One of the findings is that American teens tend to be authoritarian in defence of patriotic values. They tend to think the First Amendment is too liberal and promotes anti-American values. The group responsible for the survey has its own web site with a page devoted to the survey.
Religion or Culture
I have shuffled some categories and category names, and brought several entries into a category called, for now, Religion. It ties to other parts of culture and ideas, but it stand up as way of grouping entries.
Religion is fact of social life and a set of ideas about truth, justice and reality.
Magazine Recipes
Canadian Living Magazine just had a special issue of slow cooker recipes. Canadian Living is a regular monthly publication with recipes, and articles on cooking, decorating and the domestic arts. I usually ignore the regular issues, although I guess it would be ok for a middle-aged metrosexual to browse. Canadian Living also publishes several cookbook specials every year. The cover on this one advertised that it had 135 slow cooker recipes, and tips and tricks, and when I flipped through it, there were several interesting recipes.
Shuffle
Today I changed the names of many of my top level categories, shuffled and renamed some sub-categories and shuffled a few posts into different sub-categories. I didn’t like some of the category titles, and I wasn’t writing anything new in many categories, so I reindexed the material and changed the index.