Thursday

Optimum health institute and the new year!

I did it! I spent a week at the Optimum health institute in Bastrop Texas and guess what? I came back a new person. The institute's goal is to help your mind, body and spirit through a deep cleansing and detox program. For me, it was quite difficult. I am a "foodie" and this week was all about juicing, wheatgrass, rejuvenac, prayer, hugs, meditation and excercise. The last thing on your mind is the food you are going to eat that day because ....well...there isn't much of it.! You are there to detox, not to eat wonderful, tasty meals. Now I know how movie stars lose weight quickly and the healthy way. I would call my experience, surviving a very nutritious starvation plan. I loved the people I met, and most importantly the transformation I saw in myself and others. We all had more energy, felt happier, calmer and many times just plain exhausted and grumpy. (I was the one who was grumpy, I get that way when I am hungry!) Many people come with serious health issues. I came with a serious life issues. I couldn't lose weight. I was highly stressed and I wanted a spiritual awakening. When I came home I had lost 9 pounds, mostly water weight I assume since I gained back half the weight in a few days even though I was eating very healthy meals upon my return. However, I am ready to now take on the world. I am ready to face the challenges of the new year and thrive as a human being on this very shaky planet! I can now truly say I am capable of doing anything. I know understand to some extent what it is like to be hungry for long periods of time. I thought about the millions of people in the world who go to bed hungry. For me, this was temporary. I can't imagine what it is like living that way. I am so lucky and so grateful I have something nutritious to eat.
The "smart" people who attend the wellness retreat continue a raw food diet which is the optimum for health. I, on the other hand, chose to continue being a "foodie" just a "smarter" foodie. What a great, difficult but life affirming experience!

Friday

Merry Christmas and Media Consolidation!

I wish all of you a Merry, joyful, peaceful, warm and loving Christmas. Forget the presents and remember the loving. Don't forget to hug as many people as you can. Give them the cheapest and most exclusive present YOUR SMILE AND YOUR WARMTH. Be kind, try not to lose your temper, meditate and just be grateful, grateful, grateful!!!

Okay now why media consolidation? Cause the FCC is at it again. They want to let the only 5 big corporations gobble up more airwaves. Please do something about it if you care for our nation and our democracy. Do you like what news media consolidation has done to us? Think about Iraq, Katrina and all the lies you have been told by people who appear to be journalists but are ADVOCATES of something! Here is an article I wrote a while back for an international newspaper but before you read it, Please go to

www.stopmediaconsolidation. com


By Patricia Gras

The freedom of the press gives journalists the right to be honest, fair and courageous in gathering and interpreting information. However, many people are criticising the American press for no longer doing their job.

According to a survey of 300 journalists by the Pew Research Center and the Columbia Journalism Review, about a quarter surveyed said they avoided newsworthy stories or softened the tone of their stories to benefit the interests of their news organisations. Forty-one per cent said they practiced either one or both of these practices routinely.

Six companies now control almost all of the radio and television stations and newspapers, allowing them to be able to dictate what Americans hear as news. Those six companies have become huge conglomerates by combining different media types under their roof. A good example to this is CBS which is owned by Viacom. Viacom owns television stations in 36 American cities, along with MTV, BET, UPN, Nickelodeon, VH1, Showtime and TNN. Viacom also owns well over 100 radio stations in 40 cities. They own Simon and Schuster, which publishes books.

Those large companies reach different types of viewers and have the chance to spread their editorial budgets across several different media, so that the same journalist can report for a media firm's newspaper, website, broadcast TV station, cable TV channel and radio station.

As a result when covering a news story the perspectives are limited and the diversity of expression is gone. Viewers do not see different points of views from different journalists as they should from a media that is free and versatile. The internet only accelerates the combination process. It provides much of the incentive for firms to become large conglomerates because it offers tremendous cost savings compared to firms with a smaller arsenal of media properties.

Former assistant district attorney for New York City, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recently interviewed on Houston PBS TV, says, "The news departments have become corporate profit centres". Television news has now become an avenue for entertainment and not information. Kennedy says the stations no longer have an obligation to the public, it is to their shareholders and that obligation is met by increasing viewership -- "appealing to the lowest common denominator".

Robert McChensney author of The problem of the Media says that corporate cutbacks have allowed commercialism to penetrate journalism and the pressure to shape stories to suit advertisers is obvious. "Commercialism also pushes journalists to make content directed at demographics considered desirable by media owner and big ticket advertisers. The notion of journalism as a public service institution aimed at the entire population has vanished".

The enormity of the problem of our media today can be best viewed by looking at the decrease in the number of the big media companies in US. Ben H Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly, gives an insight into the numbers: "In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. In 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty nine...In 1990, the twenty nine had shrunk to twenty three...In 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever... In 2000 AOL Time Warner's $350 billion merged corporation was more than 1,000 times larger (than the biggest deal of 1983)".

Congressman Bernard Sanders said in a 2005 floor statement to the House leader, "I am increasingly alarmed by the culture of censorship that seems to be developing in this country. This censorship is being conducted by the corporate owners of our increasingly consolidated, less diverse, media. And it is being done by the government. This result is an insidious chill of free expression on our airwaves".

The goal of a journalist is to tell the story of the diversity of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so. Many unpopular stories are never broadcast. Whether it is the news director, the head of the company or in the case of wartime, the United States military, journalists are being censored. During the Iraqi War in 2003, journalists were allowed to be embedded with the United States military units so the real story of war could be told.

However, according to the Constitutional Rights Foundation, the military had strict rules for these journalists. The media in Iraq were to be briefed as to what information may not be broadcast because of its sensitivity to military operations. For security reasons, commanders were allowed to impose news embargos and temporarily block communication transmissions.

There is much criticism of the way the media has portrayed the war in Iraq. Robert Scheer of Los Angeles Times says: "The media has been sucker-punched completely by this administration". John Burns of the New York Times says, "We failed the American public by being insufficiently critical about elements of the administration's plan to go to war".

Whether it is the giant conglomerates or the United States military, or themselves, many journalists face censorship in some form.

Wednesday

Living Smart dec 16 at 3pm, and my wellness retreat

We are working on our membership drive. Be patient, Pledge and then enjoy the program! This means the Living Smart show does not start up until December 16th at 3pm. So you can watch it every Sunday at 3pm.
I am getting ready for the holidays, which usually means shopping and for me that means stress. I never know what to get and I wonder if I am giving the right gift etc, so this year I have decided to dissappear to never never land. I am going to a silent wellness retreat, so instead of shopping I will be drinking wheat grass, praying, meditating, reading a heck of a lot and sleeping. Does that sound appealing or what? I am preparing for a random miracle. Maybe this time, I will remember everything I read. I won't have to talk on the phone all day (which I really don't like) I won't have to answer e mails, (a necessary evil) and I won't have to schedule lunches, coffee or dinner with anyone. I will love my friends and family from afar, spend time alone and reflect. (How boring) Actually I am looking forward to it because next year will be a year of wonderful surprises. I already feel it. Wonderful things are coming my way. I will finish my 4th Living Smart season which is not too bad considering it took me 11 years to get my own show again. I plan to learn a lot more about the web, start studying my forgotten languages and hooking up with new mentors. I do believe its important to write things down so I will have time to do that. I hope you will too. I think goals and dreams are like the maps we need to get to our destination. I believe in impossible dreams, so I will just write some impossible goals, but just watch me. Next year I will be a size 8, however impossible that sounds!