Marla's adventure from Aplastic Anemia and beyond
Finished cooking the cookies, and now have the turkey and the broth for the gravy started. Will wait a couple hours before starting up the pork stew. I already baked the pork that I’m going to use in the stew this morning, so have time to check my email and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Enjoy the gatherings and the eats! Yum yum!
Marlakins
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Before I get too lazy, I thought I’d start to share some of the pictures we took while at Mexico City. Here’s a pic near our hotel on the Avenue Reforma.
Brian and I were taking a walk to look for a place to exchange currency. The rate we found was 12.15 Mexican pesos to 1 U.S. dollar. The exchange rate was better at the currency exchange along the street than at the hotel or the LAX airport. Oh, one other thing, I found that it could actually get a bit chilly in Mexico City. I never really thought of Mexico being cold.
After exchanging a little cash, Brian and I headed over to the Anthropological Museum. Here’s a pic of the front of the museum.
This museum cost about $5 U.S. or $51 Mexican pesos per person. It was a very good museum, full of artifacts that were well laid out and separated by groups like the Mayans, Aztecs, Olmecs,etc. Here’s an example of part of the Aztec exhibit.
The round stone mounted against the back wall is an Aztec calendar. The cylindrical stone laying between me and the Aztec calendar is believed to be a sort of alter for human sacrifices. The center hole is believed to be where the heart was placed during or after the sacrifice. Yikes! The carvings along the sides of the stone seem to depict the sacrificial ceremony that takes place on that alter.
Here’s Brian next to another carving. If memory serves me correctly, this is part of the exhibit for Teotihuacan. At least I’m pretty sure that right outside to the left of Brian was the miniature layout of the Teotihuacan pyramids.
We took loads of pictures so that we could continue to enjoy them at home. They were also good for art inspiration. I’ve known that colors were used back in those times, but like the Italian villas, I didn’t realize how colorful the original structures were. For instance, here’s a replica of what some of the outer walls looked like. Along the side was a sort of freeze made of ceramic, and the colorful paintings looked like a sort of fresco.
Unfortunately we were only able to spend the last half of the day at the museum. You could easily spend the whole day or more there because it was really loaded with so many artifacts. But the museum closed at 6PM, so we had to get moving. There were lots of vendors just outside of the museum, and also some flying pole men dancers. Here’s a pic of them as they were slowly repelling down.
I believe this dance has something to do with Mayan mythology of the creation of the world. They’re supposed to be birdmen (the diety associated with this dance is a bird), and one of the men plays a flute as they gradually spin around and around until they slowly reach the ground.
That evening Brian and I hopped on a local bus to get back to the hotel. That was much cheaper than taking a taxi. The bus ride only cost $4.5 pesos each compared to us paying about $20 U.S. dollars taking a taxi from the airport to the hotel. Granted that was farther, but still, a taxi would have cost us much more. $4.5 pesos is just under $0.50 U.S.
The next day we joined a tour that took us to The Guadalupe Shrine and the ruins of Teotihuacan. I’ll try to sort through some of those pics and share those later. Aside from being wiped out from traveling and the slight time change (Mexico is two hours ahead of California time), our trip to Mexico was quite nice. Definitely a nice quick get away.
Marlakins
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Back in 1999 when I was first diagnosed with aplastic anemia, I was frantically looking for ways to naturally treat myself. Amongst some of the known causes of aplastic anemia was radiation exposure. From that time on, I was fascinated with the history and discovery of radiation and how it has shaped the medical establishment and the military establishment and subsequently global politics. As a matter of fact, I even wrote a short primer series of blog entries pertaining to radiation back in 2006. The first post I titled “Radiation” and can be viewed here. I have since learned that the history of radiation is long and convoluted. While its discovery is fairly well-known, the processes of its acquisition and its subsequent uses and experiments are less known. More importantly, it’s dangers are also shrouded in confusion to this day.
Today in 2011, I’m still drawn to the subject of radiation (granted I have many distractions, thus the snail-paced rate by which I learn, heheh). After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the nuclear movement fell in the background. With the recent promotion of global warming, nuclear power was starting to re-emerge on the stage as a clean energy source. But with the advent of the Fukushima nuclear accident on March 2011, the dangers of radiation has been revitalized in some circles. I say “some” circles because there are still a lot of people who ignore and/or are just plain indifferent about it. That amazes me, but such is life. I guess it would be something like a football fanatic wondering why I couldn’t care less for the sport, heh.
Anyway, what I wanted to share today is a video I stumbled across called, “Lost Worlds – Secret Cities of the A-bomb”.
The secret cities referred to in the video were the cities created for the Manhattan Project–the United States’ secret nuclear weapons project that culminated in the creation of the atom bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy. For anyone who might not remember what Fat Man and Little Boy were, they were the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The project was enormous and cost U.S. taxpayers about $2 billion.
Despite the thousands of people who worked for the Manhattan Project, and despite its exorbitant cost, relatively few people really knew what the project was all about. Many jobs were compartmentalized and secrecy was highly enforced. According to Robert J. Lifton and Greg Mitchell, authors of Hiroshima in America, even Truman as Vice President of the United States, didn’t know about the Manhattan Project until Roosevelt died. The enormous cost and effort to create the A-bombs, according to Lifton and Mitchell, was likely a significant factor regarding the pressure/need to use the bombs before WWII ended. How could they explain using all that money and effort for nothing? It was also a political move to place the U.S. as the world leader over the defeated countries and its allies, including Russia. As such, those factors may have been the true motivating factors to drop the bombs in Japan, than ending the war. Historical accounts clearly shows that Japan had already been trying to negotiate a surrender back in April, about three and a half months before the first successful atom bomb test at Trinity, and about four months before the a- bombs obliterated two of Japan’s cities. It is also a known historical fact that only five Japanese cities had not been fire bombed by that time as well. Japan was already at its knees.
After reading Yellow Dirt by Judy Pasternak, I checked out one of the books she referenced called, The Plutonium Files by Eileen Welsome. My! Another fascinating book! Welsome’s book was copyrighted in 1999, the same year I was diagnosed with aplastic anemia and just beginning to learn about radiation. Welsome’s book brought to light 50-year-old secret radiation experiments on humans as part of the Manhattan Project. Evidently, unsuspecting people were secretly exposed to plutonium for research purposes. I am just beginning to read the book, so may comment about it later when I’m finished. For now, hope the video, “Lost Worlds–the Secret Cities of the A-bomb” is enlightening. To properly understand current world policies and how it is intertwined with the civilian world, especially those pertaining to nuclear proliferation, mining, and safety, this piece of history is indispensable.
Marlakins
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Just when you think you’ve heard it all, something new comes along. . . Well, actually that’s only partly true. There is always something new coming along. However, the more I learn, the more I realize there’s so much out there that I don’t know. I never think these days that I’ve heard it all, cuz I haven’t. There’s always more to learn, and today I stumbled across this video on how tens of thousands of barrels of nuclear “waste” were disposed of by the international nuclear community lead by Germany. . .
That’s just great news, isn’t it? How eco friendly the nuclear industry is! For more information, take a look at this video. Apparently, at the height of the cold war (1960’s or so) tons of nuclear waste was being generated, and they didn’t know what to do with it. Just as they still don’t know what to do with it today. So what did they do? Load the nuclear waste in barrels and dump it into the sea! Genius! The practice was supposedly banned in 1995, but not until after 20,500 or so barrels had been dumped and now sitting on the sea floor corroding and contaminating sea life there. And ultimately land life as the food chain works its way up to us. Maybe this is why they don’t want to test the seafood. Perhaps it’s already been contaminating years ago and they don’t want the cat out of the bag. How can we protect ourselves when so many things are done clandestinely? For all our advances, the modern world is highly over rated.
Marlakins
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Yes, that’s right, 25 “years” of marriage! Yikes! And Brian and I still get along! Enough so that we celebrated our 25th anniversary with a weekend in Mexico City. While both of us have been to Mexico, neither one of us had been to Mexico City. What a treat it turned out to be! It all started last Friday night. This was the view from our airplane window.
We were booked with American Airlines, but it turns out that AA is managed by Alaska Airlines? Uh, I don’t get it. And I also didn’t get who is this guy on the tail of all the Alaska planes?
It took me a while to see it, but maybe that black ring around his head is part of his Eskimo suit? Or should I say Inuit suit? Well, if anyone knows more about that, would be interesting to me to know.
So we arrived in Mexico City and stayed at the Emporio Hotel on the Avenue Reforma. It was a really quick trip, but we managed to get in a few sites like The Anthropological Museum, The Guadalupe Shrine, and the ruins of Teotihuacan. I’ll share some of those pics once I get them uploaded and I can sort through them (yeah, that’s what I thought about my Philippine pictures that are still not up! Ha! One of these days I’ll try to post pics of our trip to the rice terraces). Until I get those pics up, here’s one that Brian took of me at the breakfast buffet at the Emporio Hotel.
The breakfast was very good. The green drink in front of me was a combination of cactus, celery, grapefruit, and a little bit of orange. Interesting, huh? First time I’d had that, and it was pretty good! The little quesadillas on the side had cheese and cactus in them. We had heard about the cactus to eat, so we wanted to try it. The taste of them reminds me of cooked green bell peppers. It turned out to be a very satisfying breakfast and really held me over during our tour trek. Lots of walking and climbing! All worth it, tho. . . And everyone was so kind!
Marlakins
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This week started out pretty hectic for me, but despite that, I managed to finish reading Judy Pasternak’s book, Yellow Dirt, An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed. Every free moment I got, I poked my head in Pasternak’s book; it was that engaging.
Why was Yellow Dirt so engaging? I guess it’s because it’s about another significant part of American history that is an amazing story, yet not well popularized. I mean, I’m sure all of us Americans have heard of the Gold Rush, but likely not as many have heard of the Uranium Rush. Likewise, many of us have heard about the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, yet how many of us have even considered where the uranium for the bomb came from? Where did all the uranium come from to build all the nuclear warheads during the cold war? Who mined it and what ever happened to those people?
Pasternak basically lays down the history of the discovery of uranium in the Navajo Nation to the mining of the ore along with the milling, and the inter-relations/actions that occurred between the Navajos and the “White Man” throughout the 1930s to the present day. I found this Youtube video of Pasternak describing her book.
I give Judy Pasternak’s Yellow Dirt, an American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed two thumbs up. I highly recommend this book and wish more people were aware of the state of our country’s involvement with other nations and how we treat our own people. I find it very sobering and humbling.
Michael Connelly, author of Nine Dragons wrote regarding Pasternak’s book, “This book is a masterwork. It is journalism at it’s very best–a story told fully and eloquently. A story that everyone should know.” I agree. This is a story that especially all U.S. citizens should know.
Marlakins
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Today I went to the Weaving Festival in Torrance. I was able to pick up a new Kromski rigid heddle lap loom, woo hoo! I’ve got it mostly assembled now, but still need to figure out how to put on the warp. So I’ll hold off on pictures of that just yet. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some of the finished stuffs I’ve been working on. First is some three ply yarn. Here’s how it looked in singles on the bobbin. The roving behind is what was left–just over 4 oz.
Here’s the completed 3 plys. I had a little extra teal from the 3 plys, so I plied the rest with brown.
I haven’t knit these up into anything yet, but instead I finished up the cross stitch pillows I wanted to give around Thanksgiving to my family and a few friends who knew Dad for a long time. For a little background, Dad was known for changing in to his PJs as soon as he got home from work. We joked that no one can change in to his PJs faster than Dad. His sister, my aunt, used to be a professional seamstress, and so she used to make him custom PJs. Basically, Dad had lots of PJs. Before Dad passed, mom was clearing out Dad’s old stuff to make way for the new. She gave me a bag of old clothes that she said I could do whatever with. Part of the package had some of Dad’s old PJs. After Dad passed, I decided that I would use one of his PJs as part of a Christmas decoration. Dad’s favorite holiday was Christmas and he loved to decorate. So I thought making Christmas ornaments with one of Dad’s PJs would be a nice memento of Dad each year. Here’s what the ornaments looked like in progress.
I forgot to mention that last year I got a new sewing machine! At the time I wasn’t feeling too good, so I wasn’t able to test it out. Instead I carried the manual around all over to read and look at the diagrams. Well, a year later. . . I finally got around to pulling out the machine only to realize that I didn’t know how to thread it, and I couldn’t figure out what I did with the manual! Ack! Luckily, Brian found a website that showed how to thread it. Now that I know how to do it, it’s crazy that I was stumped, heheheh. It’s a bottom of the line Bernina, but good enough for my tinkering. Course, my sewing skills need a lot of refresher and work. . . Here’s what the Christmas ornament pillows look like completed.
Oh! Another thing I learned how to do is braiding. Well, not the 3-strand braiding , but 8 strands. While looking through craft books I saw one on Japanese and Peruvian braids. I checked the book out at the library and made a cardboard template. Here’s what it looks like.
The braid comes out through the middle. Here’s a pic of the back of the template which has a better view of what the completed braid looks like.
Depending upon how you configure the colors gives the braids a different look. At first I didn’t know what to do with these braids. Then I decided I could I use these braided cords for the pillows. Here’s a closer look at the pillows. I just stitched the cords onto the sides and they serve to hang the pillows.
The cord that’s light green is actually only 4 strands of knitting yarn, but all the rest of the cords are 8 strands of DMC floss. I forgot to take a close up shot of the little heart tags I sewed below the ribbons. It says, “Handmade with Love.” I thought those tags were so cute. Eh, I know I didn’t do such a hot job with lining up the stripes. . . Obviously I need a lot more practice! But at least it’s a lot faster to use a machine that hand stitching the backing. I’m really looking forward to more projects. And now I’ve got my lap loom. . . Oh, and before I forget, the cross stitch patterns were from The Prairie Schooler called Starry Night.
Okay, that’s all for now. Hope I can get that lap loom going soon!
Marlakins
A couple weeks ago I got an email from an old friend. Apparently he was requested to round up old ITC people for a get-together. Being that it’s been about 12 years since I’d worked there, I thought it was nice that he remembered me.
There were about 30 of us. We met for dinner at Damon’s in Glendale. I have to admit that there were quite a few people there that I didn’t know (guess they must have come after my time), and a lot of people I did work with weren’t there. BUT there were quite a few I did know. Most of them were the guys. For some reason only a few of the ladies I knew showed up like Rosanne, my boss. Here’s a pic with her and the owner of ITC (at least while I worked there, evidently he sold it several years later).
They were really good people to work with. I was sorry to leave when I got sick. So it was good to see them again and know that they all seem to be doing well. Here’s another pic with a couple of the guys. My mom came with me.
I thought I’d include this other pic cause I got a kick out of Jeff’s expression here, ha!
Very nice guys. It was good catching up. It never ceases to amaze me how fast time flies by and how old our “kids” are now! Even mom enjoyed herself last night. 
Marlakins
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Back in 1999, I was diagnosed with Very Severe Idiopathic Aplastic Anemia. Idiopathic basically meant that they didn’t know what caused my aplastic anemia. But that didn’t stop me from wondering what might have caused it, and so one of the things I did was take a minerals test to see if I had any heavy metals problem. The one metal that stood out was uranium. My level was off the chart. My naturopath remarked that all the people he had seen with levels that high pretty much all had cancer. He also remarked that there was a woman he knew who got uranium exposure through tailings from the uranium mines. I didn’t think about it back then because I really didn’t know anything about uranium and what it was. So I had no idea where any uranium mining was done. Since then I have read quite a bit on it. And recently when Borders went out of business, I purchased a bunch of books, several about the topic of nuclear energy and/or nuclear arms. I’m currently reading one of those books, which is entitled Yellow Dirt by Judy Pasternak.
I’m only half way through Pasternak’s book, but I can definitely say that she is an excellent writer. As usual, I never know at first if anything I’m reading is true or not, so I do like to look up other sources to see what they say about the topic. In particular, Pasternak’s book deals with uranium mining in Navajo territory. For anyone who may not know where Navajo territory is, it’s in the four corners region of where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah meet, thus it’s name, four corners. Now, I’ve been to Taos, New Mexico, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park in Utah, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona, but I’ve only been to the airport in Denver, Colorado. I’ve always thought it would be nice to one day visit Four Corners. After reading about the uranium mining done on the Navajo reservation and how it was never cleaned up properly, I don’t think I want to go there anymore, sigh. It’s a really sad thing to think about how the Navajo reservation was poisoned like that considering the Navajo were trying to help with the cold war effort of mining for uranium and earlier for vanadium. Not only were the Navajo “not” informed of the dangers of radiation exposure, then were purposefully monitored (in secret) to see how the human body reacted to radiation exposure. Basically, they were used as both slave (they only got a small portion of what the uranium was worth) and guinea pig (according to Pasternak, the Manhattan Project was interested in understanding the risks their scientists were taking with radiation exposure). To add insult to injury, it was the Navajo Code Talkers that helped the U.S. take Iwo Jima, yet their land and people were knowingly exposed to dangerous levels of radiation through their mining. The Japanese were never able to crack the code because they didn’t know the Navajo language.
So I wanted to see what other sources there were regarding the uranium mining in Navajo territory. I found videos such as this one on the subject.
While Pasternak’s book hasn’t discussed it (I’m only half way through the book, so she might mention it later), it seems there were other Indian reservations that were involved with uranium mining. Here’s another video on the subject.
Frankel mentioned Crow Butte, so I’m assuming that’s in Washington State. But I’ve seen other videos mentioning mining with the Lakota Indians, so I think that’s also South and North Dakota. The rush for uranium was during the 40’s to 70’s, but some mines continued on longer. Yet, to this day, it seems that those sites have never been properly cleaned up and people continue to be exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.
After watching some of these videos, I came across this one wherein McCain and several other politicians are trying to continue uranium mining in Arizona. Either McCain is mistaken about his information regarding the safety of uranium mining or he is just out-right lying, I don’t know, but he’s definitely pushing to commence uranium mining. They mention the Arizona Strip, which sounds like it’s along the Arizona-Utah border.
I know that the nuclear issue is very controversial, but after Fukushima, after Chernobyl, after Three Mile Island, after Windscale, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the multitude of studies showing the dangers and harmful effects of radiation, when will we learn? I don’t understand how anyone can think nuclear power is safe. From the mining of uranium ore to the spent fuel rods that they don’t know what to do with, nuclear power is dangerous. They talk about opening uranium mines for jobs, but are we willing to pay our lives for those jobs? Many, if not most, of those guys who mined uranium didn’t even know they were in danger until it was too late. What people do to each other is really appalling. If we only followed God’s golden rule to love one another, we wouldn’t be deceiving people into working in dangerous conditions. Instead of loving one another, we love money and power. But God sees everything.
Matthew 25:40
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Since you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”
Marlakins
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