Heart @ MindSay

This is an original work by Duncan Morley, please don't fuck with it.



                                                                   Personal Demons
    In a single sight you may see a man, sleeping with his eyes open, but a man nonetheless. You can never see him for all that he is while he is there. He will never even see you for anything. He is a man obsessed. He is no longer a human; he is but a man gone mad.
    He is lying alone in the woods of eastern Ontario. The bugs know not to leave him be, but the mammals and birds would rather devour their own offspring than take a step in his direction.
    His body has been all but stripped to its bones. All around him the aroma of pus is prevalent. His breath is rapid and rattling. His mouth is dry, and his body is absorbed with open sores. The maggots and worms are already ravaging him. He is a man embracing Death, but Death will not take him.
    He is a man who has stuck himself in time.
    He lived in a small tight-knit community near the provincial town of Cobalt. He was a man whom some respected for his duties and tasks about the community, but most regarded him as a stranger to them, even though he has lived in the same spot for upwards of twenty years.
    He was a reclusive man: he kept to himself. He would never have dreamt of leaving his home if it were not for his job or if food were not a necessity to him.
     He worked as a wilderness guide in the Canadian forests; more commonly, a canoeing guide for the few local tourists. Sometimes he would leave with a client, or even all alone, for weeks at a time. He knew he was never at peace with the fresh waters and thus, he had an uncommon dread of his profession.
    When he would eventually come back, he would go unseen. He would ride the river all the way to his cottage, and contrary to a welcome after up to a month alone, he would go unnoticed by the townspeople.
    On one occasion he returned by the route straight through the village center. Although not many people were out, and when most saw him they did not know who he was, the ones that did were at a loss for words at his sudden appearance. He was a strong sight. He was carrying more than his share of food, but alone still.
     It wasn’t a terribly uncommon sight to see him alone. The ones who knew his name figured he simply went out on a solo trip as opposed to business.
    Once he was just out of earshot of the town a barely audible mumble was heard to arise from his boat:
    “This… This makes no sense...”
    With this he promptly disappeared to his home.
    When he exited his boat and hung it upon his formal rack, as opposed to flipped next to his cottage. Despite the early time of 4:15 P.M., he hurried into his bed and soon fell asleep.
    During the night, he dreamt a nightmare. He saw a body rising into the air. It rose so high the height was beyond recognition. The body began to glow a demonic green, and a river of the same mist flowed from its body. With no warning it burst into an inferno of grey flame.
He woke the next morning to remember nothing of the night before. Contrary to his normal routine, he showed himself at the town’s only diner.  It was more of a chip-stand than anything else, but it served coffee. It served its purpose.
    He ordered the drink, but never moved even once to so much as smell it. He let it sit until it was as cold as the air around him.
    At about noontime, he was still motionless. A fellow townsman who sat down next to him, staring directly at him, greeted him. The townsman, Matthew Fraser, then waited half an hour himself before saying anything:
    “Why have you come back?” He asked in a serious tone. “You know as well as I do that the people who know you here want you out.”
    His first words in hours were spoken:
    “But I have nowhere else to go,” he replied with a grin.
    “ We don’t care about those things here, soon you too will realize that.”
    “You really are the only one here who cares about me. You really are my only friend.”
    With a smile, Matthew was gone.
    The waitress, Leona Smith, then came over for an inquiry to what Mr. Fraser wanted. He told her it was just an innocent exchange of words. She asked him if he would be paying for the coffee that was drunk. With a puzzled glance at his now empty coffee mug he said:
    “Yes.”
    With this he paid the young lady, leaving a generous tip, and left her for his home once more.
    A few days passed with no sight of him, but on the third day he was spotted once more at the diner. He once again ordered coffee, and he once again paid and left for his home.
    He would never return to the diner, or for that matter, the village.
    He laid down for sleep and entered yet another nightmare, from this one he would never wake.
    It showed him living in a world not unlike the world in which he actually lived.
    There was a small village near which a cottage sprung forth. The area was abundant in wildlife and had a moderate amount of people living in the town. But every living thing that was exposed to him in the dream would begin to decay. Some would bloat and host themselves to hideous parasites, while others would gain sunken features and seemingly wilt.
    There was a constant glow of twilight around the town and along the river, it could be evaded nowhere in the dream.
    The scene changed: it was now a portrait of the river that ran through the village. The river was not as he remembered it, instead of the crisp, cool blue he was used to, it was a cold and deep shade of black.
    He knew what was to happen next.
    In an instant the river went a pale white with a line of crimson waters flowing through it. With this he saw a spectral hand flowing through it. He only saw it briefly but he knew exactly what it was.
    He cried out in horror. With this he woke the dead.
    The body of Zachary Smith, recognizable only to him: the child he took on the prior trip, burst forth.
    A completely different entity than the naïve young boy who set out weeks before, the thing that stood before him was a demon. A demon conjured from all the evil thoughts surrounding the boy’s death.
    In a single swift motion, the demon brutally maimed him. The demon was to devour him.
     It rose up into the sky. With a flash of remembrance he exclaimed:
    “ At six miles up you will explode, I have seen it all!”
    The demon replied:
    “No one listens to the damned.”
     But this man was not damned. He was an innocent, never taking more than he needed. It was an accident that the boy died. Leona knew this, Matthew knew this, but he did not.
    The demon rose, to a total of what was now six miles, and burst apart in an inferno of grey flame.
    With a moments hesitation he exclaimed for joy, for he thought he had defeated the demon.
    Little Zachary began to form once again out of the ash. The man wept when he saw the boy again, but he knew it would not last. The boy began to grow wings, horns, black skin, and demonic eyes. He knew it was done.
    A moment before the demon pierced his heart, it all ceased. There was a flash of absolute nothingness, followed by an eternal repetition of the agonizing horrors he experienced.
    
    After two months since his last appearance the knowledgeable village people began to grow an uncertain concern. There was a buzz about the town of how he had fled without any reasons, or that the Ontario Provincial Police had found him living off the grid and taken him away.
    Mr. Fraser knew that none of these rumors could be true. He set out for the man’s cottage that very evening.
    After some ragged rapping upon a locked door, Mr. Fraser battered it down.
    He arrived inside the house and immediately smelled the foul stench of rotting flesh. He moved into the bedroom and saw the body of his friend. It showed glassy eyes staring into nothing, it showed a split mouth, with dried blood all over his face. But what it didn’t show would be the question to haunt Matthew. It didn’t show the guilt of a man. It didn’t show the key to immortality to being eternal repentance. It didn't show the insanity of a man who would confine himself to damnation for an innocent crime.
    Mr. Fraser simply closed his eyes and turned to leave: he could no longer save this man.

Many of us suffer from type 2 diabetes. In fact there are about 14 million people in the United States who are in this situation and a good number are being treated with Avandia, a medicine designed to increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin. The drug was first marketed in 1999 by GlaxoSmithKline and it became so popular among physicians that more than 60 million prescriptions have been written.

 

Avandia, also know as rosiglitazone,  is an oral anti-diabetic agent that also improves glycemic control and reduces circulating insulin levels for those who have Type 2 diabetes and are not insulin-dependent. Avandia is sometimes prescribed with other medicines but is not used for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes.

Diabetes sufferers should know the signs of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and how to recognize them, including hunger, headache, confusion, irritability, drowsiness, weakness, dizziness, tremors, sweating, fast heartbeat, seizure (convulsions), fainting, or coma (severe hypoglycemia can be fatal). Always keep a source of sugar available in case you have symptoms of low blood sugar.

GlaxoSmithKline reported that annual sales of the drug climbed as high as $2.5 billion in 2006. The drug's patent expires in 2012. The drug appears to be quite versatile as researchers have suggested that it could also help treat some form of Alzheimer’s disease, ulcerative colitis and even malaria.

However, there is also a history of concerns about Avandia, including questions that it might lead to an increased risk of heart attacks.  One scientific study concluded that there was nearly a 40 percent higher chance of a heart attack among Avandia users than those not on the medicine. The company itself has acknowledged there could other side effects, including peripheral edema, or problems in the extremities caused by fluid retention and swelling. Another risk is macular edema, in which there is swelling and protein buildup in the eye.

There have been numerous lawsuits filed over the effects of Avandia and it is easy to find notices about these on the Internet. If you track these over the last few years you will notice a growing number of warnings about the drug and offers by law firms to represent victims.

GlaxoSmithKline is well aware of the problem. The company notified physicians in December, 2006 of the dangerous side effects. However, the problem goes back much farther than that. If you do some research on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration web site you will find that on June 28, 2001, the FDA issued a warning to GlaxoSmithKline. The FDA told the manufacturer it was not being completely forthright in its promotional materials about the risks of the drug.

 

Then, in April of 2002, The FDA issued another letter about the dangers of Avandia. This one warned healthcare professionals about a change in the warning label on Avandia  in connection with the possibility of excess fluid retention and congestive heart failure in patients taking Avandia.

That was followed in December, 2002, with a letter the FDA sent to GlaxoSmithKline to include another warning paragraph on the Avandia label:

"In postmarketing experience, there have been rare reports of unusually rapid increases in weight and increases in excess of that generally observed in clinical trials. Patients who experience such increases should be assessed for fluid accumulation and volume-related events such as excessive edema and congestive heart failure."

 

 

With a history like that those of us taking Avandia should wonder just what we should do. The FDA says that it is conducting a complete investigation but for those who exhibit the symptoms of serious side effects that the FDA warns about will the results of that investigation come in time?

That there are serious, unresolved risks with the use of Avandia goes without question. On its web site the FDA lists the following organizations that are in agreement with this:

• American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists
• American College of Cardiology
• American Diabetes Association
• American Heart Association
• Endocrine Society

“FDA agrees with these organizations and is conducting a thorough investigation,” the government says on its web site.

What will be interesting is whether the government and its investigators or the legal community and its resources get to the bottom of this first.

In 2006, a "prescribing information" paper issued for Avandia from FDA's MedWatch talks about the increasing evidence of risk of cardiovascular events. This is found on page 13 of the document and highlighted in yellow by MedWatch. MedWatch is the FDA Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.

The longer Avandia and Actos have been on the market, the more evidence of adverse cardiac events, fluid retention and congestive heart failure. All of this culminated this week with the newest study on Avandia which linked it to a risk of heart attacks and death from cardiovascular events.

Avandia Heart Attack

OCTOBER 2-3, 7:30-9:30 PM - Meet renowned spiritual teacher and author Lama Christie McNally as she returns to Los Angeles to introduce her newest book, The Tibetan Book of Meditation, and shares two days of rare and beautiful teachings on how these profound practices can transform the mind and open the  heart.

ABOUT LAMA CHRISTIE MCNALLY - Lama Christie is a professor of spiritual studies and a translator of Tibetan and Sanskrit classical monastic texts. She co-authored The Essential Yoga Sutra, How Yoga Works and The Eastern Path to Heaven. She is an accomplished practitioner who has spent six years of her life in silent deep meditation and is one of the first American women to be recognized as a lama.  Lama Christie trained in India and Nepal and has received extensive instruction in all the texts required for a Geshe degree (traditionally a 20-year course of study).  She is co-founder of Diamond Mountain University, a revolutionary effort to provide a classical monastic education to Westerners from all walks of life, free of charge.  In 2003, she completed a traditional three-year silent meditation retreat with her spiritual partner, Geshe Michael Roach.

DATE/TIME:  October 2-3, 2009,  7:30-9:30 PM
LOCATION: Mahasukha Center, ACI-LA (Asian Classics Institute of L.A.)
ADDRESS:  6512 Arizona Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90045

The Tibetan Book of Meditation is a synthesis of all the great Tibetan commentaries on meditation.  It is a comprehensive guide to transforming one’s meditation practice from ordinary to extraordinary.  The book begins with wisdom from a profound ancient teacher, Master Kamalashila, and continues with teachings carried through by a long lineage of Tibetan masters, right up to the great modern day Lamas.  Lama Christie combines her own insights and experience together with ancient wisdom, to teach today’s practitioners how to transform their meditations into a practice that can bring them ultimate happiness.

ABOUT THE MAHASUKHA CENTER
Mahasukha (Sanskrit for “great bliss") is the home of the Asian Classics Institute of Los Angeles (ACI-LA).  The Center provides a wide range of courses, including guided meditations, Buddha dharma, teachings on spiritual partners, workshops by nationally known yoga teachers and informal talks on a variety of subjects.  The Center is a place for people to connect through study, practice and events such as Dharma Flicks evenings, debate nights, dinners and more.  All classes and events are open to the public and offered on a donation basis. All are welcomeSee aci-la.org for events and pod-casts

TO LEARN MORE about the Asian Classics Institute of Los Angeles, Lama Christie McNally, The Tibetan Book of Meditation and Diamond Mountain University, and for information about events or downloadable podcasts, please visit the following links:

aci-la.org     
aci-la.org/mg -podcasts.html
DiamondMountain.org
TibetanBookofMeditation.org

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Dixie currently feels:

 Tired

 

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Blog #10

Fun with fake blood...

 

 

Proper fucking knackered like.

 

I had my alarm set for half 10 - I needed to get up and wash my hair because it was all greasy Mary - but Shelly rang me at about half 9 and woke me up.

The alarm went off when she was still on the phone to me - GIRLS ALOUD AGAIN.

 

So I washed my hair - tidied up my room, took all my World Tour instruments downstairs and set up the Wii.

Then I hooked up my iPod docking station on top of the breadbin and started mixing up the fake blood.

 

I made a contraption from a roll of parcel tape, a cushion and a round tuppaware box - I filled it with blood and put the pig's heart inside.

 

Ashleigh came first - as I KNEW she would - Adam came shortly after, then Shelly - just as I had finally made the blood work.

 

I made the first batch REALLY wrong, so I wasted shitloads of the precious syrup and cornflour.

I still had plenty - and because Sammie didn't turn up... (Not talking to her now, this is the last time she fucking stands me up.) - I froze what we had left - so hopefully we can find another willing participant during the week to help us with the other gory part.

 

We practised the heart ripping scene for about 20 minutes - but when we actually tried it with the cushion - as I KNEW it would, all the blood seeped out - so we tried another angle - Adam to lay in the puddle - for me to stab through the tin foil lid and pull out the heart that way.

 

I thought I wouldn't be too repulsed by it - but I bloody was.

It was the squelch of the blood and random innard fluid that dripped down my fingers and the scent from it was fucking weird as well. And that's nothing compared to the texture of it.

 

We filmed some other indoors-y parts whilst Adam was washing his hair - I accidentally held the heart above his head, so it all dripped on his face and his fringe - but it actually made for a better effect.

 

To be truthful, I know these clips could have been better - but we'll have to see what it's like after editing.

 

Another gory part was when I was beating up Ashleigh with the cane - and then punching her in the stomach until she "vomited".

So, I mixed up some porridge oats, milk, flour, fake blood and carrots - it looked SO fucking horrible, I swear down. Ash said it actually didn't taste too bad - but the texture - apparently was unbearable.

 

The first take of the scene is hilarious - she spits it out, then you just see her shuddering, and she goes "....UURRGH..." proper loud. :)

 

We would have gotten more clips filmed - but mam and dad came home earlier than I thought.

We carried on even so - with rather random comments from mam provided.

 

Especially after the vomit scene and we were cleaning up inside - but we left the bowl and Ash's chair outside:

"WHO LEFT MY BOWL OUT HERE?!"

 

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Adam and I went halves on a meal deal from Riverside Pizza - so we got a 10" pizza, a half parmo, chips, donner meat, garlic sauce and salad - shared that out nicely between us.

 

Pretty lush too - Adam said he was full about half way through - and there was 1/4 of his half of the half parmo left - so I just stuck my fork in it and took it. :D

 

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We played a lot of World Tour today, but we actually didn't make any band videos - thanks to slagface Sammie not turning up.

 

Even so - Adam and I dared Ash to go on vocals and sing LA BAMBA.

Fucking piss, honestly. :)

 

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My mam is SO fucking weird.

Before they went out - she got in Ashleigh's wheelchair and started bowling herself all around the passage - SO random seeing her roll past the doorway.

 

Then I had a go. :D

 

I've been waiting to have a go for SO long.

Ash actually gave me permission this time - so I was bowling around in it for about 10 minutes. It's so funky. And so comfy too.

 

Of course, Adam felt he had to have a go as well - he was seeing how fast he could go from the front door to the kitchen. Lmfao, Ash is so sound.

 

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I'm tired right now, so I shall leave you with some video stills. :D