Living with the Elderly

"Getting old isn't for pussies." My dad said, remarking about his parents who now live with us.

To me, my grandparents were always old; when I was born my grandfather was already 76 years-old. Now he's 98. I've seen him lose his sight, his hearing, and his ability to move around easy. I've seen how daunting it can be just to get up on the sidewalk in front of a convenient store and even how hard it is to put pants on in the morning.

On the other side of the coin, my cousin just had a baby. I now know that living to be in the 90s (some even younger) face the cyclical nature of life, that you will become a baby again in your old age. You'll need endless patience to care for them, and maybe even more patience to be that old. The difference between being a baby and being old is that you've had a life that you were always dependant on yourself and to watch that wither away, not being able to do anything about it, is extremely difficult.

Everyday we complain about things in our life: that we have bills over due, that we hate that jackass that cut us off, that we keep getting called into work: but the truth is that without those things, we wouldn't have much to live for. Life is made of complications, and when you get old they are abundant, but none of them are yours alone. The children that you raised are going to be the ones helping you then. Privacy is a thing of the past. In the end, we may lose our dignity, just to live another few years. Living with with the elderly has taught me one thing, humility, because in the end you're going to go out with nothing but the love of the people that you raised, the generation that followed you. All the friends that my grandfather had made in his life are gone now. He has lived through two world wars, people landing on the moon, the invention of the TV, radio, Internet, computer.... He still has his memories and the love of his family, but for a lot of people they have neither.

My grandfather has lived a long and caring life. He never hesistated to help those in need around him. Which proves to me that those that constantly destroy the relationships around them, that try not to mend ties between broken family members or friends, are going to find themselves desperately alone in the end. That should be enough to scare anyone, I know it scares me.

It is hard to watch the people that you love, the people that took you fishing, the people that taught you how drive, the people that taught you a lot about life, get old. Part of it is a selfish thing, that you know you will be in those same shoes one day. Mostly though, its watching someone whose life seemed so bright to you, start to dim, knowing that you can't do anything about it but make them as comfortable as possible.

The relationship between my grandparents uplifts me . They are a team, constantly looking out for each other. My grandmother has a tumor in her leg and for a long time my grandfather looked after her, now she looks after him as best she can. Without that tie, I know that both of them would have a much harder time. The divorce rate in this country is very high, but if people knew that in the end your going to want someone that you've known for a long time by your side, a lot of them might think differently... Because without each other, we have nothing.

Battlefield: Scientology?

For those of you who haven't been following the ongoing war between the BBC Panorama Film Maker John Sweeney and the Church of Scientology... You guys are missing out.

I first found out about the BBC doing a documentary on Scientology from Digg.com. Most of us have gotten our view of Scientology from South Park... So at the time I did not know much about Scientology, so I decided (like anyone who would rather find potentially boring information by watching something, than by reading it) to look the subject up on Youtube to see what I could find out. Well, that's where I found that during the taping of the BBC documentary, the host John Sweeney had gone ballistic on some Scientologists at one of their compounds. As pointed out in that video there are two separate versions of the John Sweeney outburst: the Scientology version and the BBC Version (Part I, II, III).

The Scientology version of the events makes them seem very passive, that it was actually Sweeney's own manipulative techniques that failed him. I'm a fair guy for the most part, and I can understand not wanting your religion to be referred to as a cult; but that's when I started finding out that the situations Sweeney had gotten into were not far and few between.

Xenutv.com producer, Mark Bunker, had videotaped an international demonstration against the Church of Scientology on March 13th, 1999. By the following day, Scientologists were at his door protesting Bunker as a religious bigot... that was fast. On July 2nd, Bunker decided to go to a Scientology fair being hosted in LA. Guess who Bunker ran into at this fair. Yes, that's right, the same guy that was protesting Bunker at his house. This time Dan, the protestor, was much braver with lackies following behind.

What other religion would try and goad people into becoming angry? There is a clear difference between people like Ray Comfort and Scientologists.

The war online is still raging on... Youtube actually being in the forefront. One of the editors from the BBC, Kevin Marsh, wrote in his blog that he believed the Scientology backlash against the BBC documentary to be a good thing, saying, "Journalism that has integrity and honesty in the first place has nothing to fear." Marsh believes that we should continually question the integrity of the journalists who are feeding us the "facts". Amen to that.

I believe the same should be said of people who follow any religions. While you might not want to question your faith, make sure to continually question those who would try to lead your faith. No matter how you look at it, religion will always come down to personal belief, and because of that, I believe that you should question anyone who would impose their beliefs on you.

Stephen

Canadian Scientists May Have Found Cure for Cancer

Yep, the Canadians are at it again. The University of Alberta DCA site has announced a potential cure for several types of cancer using their non-patented DCA compound, meaning that it is not owned by any pharmaceutical companies and is relatively cheap to manufacture. While there haven't been any tests on humans yet, the laboratory tests and animal tests are very promising.

They say that it may take several months before human testing begins.

Kudos to you UoA!

Stephen

The God Debate - Atheists v.s. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron

So the debate, hosted by ABC's Nightline, has come and gone. Finally we may have the answer to the question that has plagued humanity for a long long long long time.

Who won? Was it the Godless Atheists with their reason and logic or was it the well mannered and kind, yet naive, followers of God? Well, here is the run down.

Ray Comfort is the man with all the answers. He teams up with "Growing Pains" star Kirk Cameron to deliver the proof in God's existence to the heathen Atheists.

Let's step back for a second to look at Mr. Comfort's earlier proof of God's existence. In this series of videos Comfort and Cameron try to show proof in the Almighty with a farm banana. Yes, that's right, a mere banana wields the power of the Alpha and Omega. Look how easy it is to grasp with its non-slick surface. How it points right at the face for quick consumption. Not to mention it has a tab at the top for easy access to its 'naner goodness.

Well, many pointed out on Youtube that real banana's come in many shapes and sizes:



Some brought up the point about God's creation of pineapples and coconuts. Seriously, God that's a good point. Why did you make those tasty pineapples so hard to get into!?

While the banana can be used to prove God's existence, ordinary jarred Peanut Butter can disprove science. That's right, whoever that old geezer is has a damned good point, Atheists. Why isn't their random occurrences of new life inside my peanut butter jar? I think that if life were to be created by your difficult-to-understand processes that it should happen in my food jars as well. I want life spewing from everything, that would be a true survival of the fittest. Imagine what kind of Jelly-like life forms could be made inside my peanut butter jar! That would make my sandwich making so much easier.

Thank God for grocery stores, or else we'd never have a solid foundation for Christianity.

What new proof will Comfort bring to the debate? Maybe a miracle could be in store? Maybe some healing like Jesus and his apostles did in the New Testament? Moses got a whole bunch of plagues... what could Mr. Comfort get... Oh my God... it's Coca Cola? Comfort believes that if you see a can of tasty soda that there must have been someone who made it, that if you see a building that someone must have built it, and that if you see a person someone must have f***ed them into existence.

......

In this longer cut of the video (which you don't really have to watch), Comfort believes that our eyes and hands just suddenly appeared on the human body.

I wonder how those unbelieving Scientists think our magic seeing spheres got into our heads...


That easy to see progress from left to right must be some sort of scientific magic trick! It may not be convincing to everyone, but damn it almost seems to make sense...

Alright, maybe you Evolutionists have a point about the eye, but what about the hand, I bet you ain't got proof on that...

Hmm... Damn you Science! Really, that many animals have that similar of an arm structure? That many have 5 finger bones? You Scientists are witches! Photoshopping life by the genes!

But wait, Comfort has MORE proof, yes more! (which again, you don't really have to watch). This time he is a lot more preachy.... He had said that he wouldn't use the Bible or faith to prove God. Well, he uses the 10 commandments as proof to God's existence because it "mirrors" our conscience.

He seems to agree that we are born with a conscience, as does Science to an extent, and that it acts as God's voice. The 10 Commandments reflect our conscience as instructions of what we already know to be true... (don't lie, don't steal, don't f*** your neighbor's wife/husband/both) Well, if we are born with a conscience that is God's voice, why would He need to give us the Commandments? He seems to have left that part out.

If you're interested in seeing what the heathen Atheists have to say, here you go. They really dumbfounded the two disciples a few times. I think that everyone was disappointed with the outcome of Comfort's Coca-Cola proof...

Neither side could prove one way or the other, but I have to admit that the heathens brought up a few good points.

Stephen

Knowledge is Free

This may sound dorkish, but I actually enjoy learning new things. If knowledge is power then wouldn't free knowledge equal free power? Hell yeah it do.

Free University Lectures and Courses Online

More Free Lectures

Open Source, Free Medical Journal

Some of these lectures you can watch or listen to. And for those pot smokers out there you can even get high and go to class. These are classes and lectures offered by HARVARD, BERKLEY, CAL-TECH.... etc. The "top" colleges the US has to offer. What usually costs thousands of dollars to attend you can now watch online for free. If you try a class/lecture and you don't like it, no money lost to you. Their classes and lectures are constantly growing too, so you might find something that is interesting to you.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so if you promise to at least look at one of those links you can also look at this:

TV Links - Free TV

If anyone asks, you didn't link that from me, heh.