Around my home, I have 10 hummingbird feeders, on 8 hangers - essentially 8 different locations. Six of the eight locations are "out of the line of sight" of each other, so that a hummingbird male who tries to guard / covet / protect / defend one location cannot effectively cover more than one of the six. I've come to observe today, that EACH of the six separated & isolated locations has a male hummingbird who has claimed it. Each of these six hummingbirds chase off all other males who approach, and if the female is a different species, they get chased off as well. The guarding males allow females of the same species to drink from their unlimited nectar supply, and vociferously swoop and strafe me when I go to refill the feeders.
So after work today, I decided to photograph each of these six possessive males, and document them here, so that you can see them too. When I go into my kitchen to make tea throughout the day, I can see two of the Anna's males - one outside the kitchen sink window and one outside the patio doors. When I walk through the living room I can see another Anna's perched beside the hanging fuschia and jasmine. As I cross the dining room, there's another Anna's perched in the plum tree, standing vigil over the feeder hidden under the pepper trees. Then, when I go into Dr Desert Flower's office, I can spy the Rufous hiding in the oleander beneath the two feeders. And each time I return to my office, outside my window is a very feisty Rufous (this month) who sits in the lemon tree outside my window, menacing any creature who comes near his feeders, including a lizard that was at least 5 times the bird's body mass who had climbed up the wall behind the jasmine I planted here, and who probably would have enjoyed dining on the Rufous if he'd come within striking range.
For those with slow internet connections, these are each 4 to 6 megabyte jpegs, so you might want to view them when you're on free Wifi and not roaming on a mobile device.
Office Window Rufous quaffing refreshing nectar after chasing off a rival
Office Window Rufous perched in the shade of the lemon tree
Hungry patrolling lizard, beside the lemon tree
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The Rufous in the oleander outside of DDF's window, looking up at me; taken at a 58.5X zoom "thru window" setting
The living room Anna's, guarding both feeders visible from the couch.
Kitchen door Anna's, perched in the dwarf palm, 3 feet from his guarded feeder
Kitchen sink window Anna's, looking down at his feeder & the human with a camera pointed up at him. (58.5X zoom)
The immature juvenile in the plum tree outside the dining room window; he hasn't gotten his full plumage yet
It's been rather 'gloomy' here, weather wise, with the "June Gloom" marine layer hanging around most every morning, and not burning off until at least 2 or 3pm, even though we are more than 3 miles (as the heron flies) from the shore. Each of these males, in full sunlight, are much more brilliant than they are in the shade, but getting them "to pose" in the sun is next-to-impossible, as they appear to enjoy guarding their posts in the shade more often than in the sun.
Below are several other hummingbird related shots taken over the last few weeks, that I thought turned out pretty well. I hope you enjoy them too.
2 juvenile males cautiously sharing the feeder outside my office, while the Rufous is off chasing away another challenger.
Thirsty Rufous outside of DDF's office window
A mature male Anna's, June 7th outside the dining room in the plum tree, before moving onto bigger nectar feeders
He was rather a ham, and liked to pose, as long as I stayed inside the house (yes, exact same bird as previously pictured)
Under the dwarf palm outside the kitchen door, last week. Maybe I should call him Tyrion?
The plums last week
After picking 1/5th of them
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Mature Anna's male in the front yard palm tree, ready to fight the Rufous who hangs out there.
Iridescent Anna's in the lemon tree, before the pugnacious Rufous chased him away, last month
Same Rufous last month; this shot taken as I crouched in the door of my office's closet to get a different angle.
Time for me to go pick the last of the plums, and then walk down the street to get the mail. Cheers.
The scared, self-hating, confused little boy who used to be named Omar Mateen was NOT a terrorist.
He was
- a former physical abuser of his ex-wife, before their marriage failed and ended in divorce
- an openly angry and expressive of disgust when with his father in Miami when he and his father saw two men kissing and the son became outraged that men would do that
- a Grindr profile user, where several users blocked him because he was 'creepy' (as I just heard on All In with Chris Hayes)
- a Jack'd profile user (yet Another Gay Men's chat and dating website)
- a frequent visitor to The Pulse night club in Orlando before he went on a killing spree in the early morning of June 12th, right after 'last call' at 2am, armed with a legally purchased AR-15
- completely ignorant of the dichotomy, animus, and outright armed hostilities between Hezbollah (fundamentalist Shiites in Lebanon) and ISIS / ISIL (fundamentalist Sunnis in Iraq & Syria) when this confused & stupid little boy called Orlando 911 and 'pledged his loyalty to ISIS', AND Hezbollah, AND the AL Qaeda inspired Tsarnaev brothers of the Boston Bombing. When you DO NOT understand the centuries long hatred and conflict between the diametrically opposed groups such as Hezbollah and ISIS, and you claim allegiance with BOTH of them, you're ignorant, a fool, and incredibly desperate for someone, ANYONE, to like you, claim you, want to support you.
- A natural born US citizen (Queens NY), not an immigrant
- formerly on the TSA No Fly list & investigated by the FBI after he bragged at work (as a security guard) that he knew the Boston Marathon bombers, that he knew people in ISIS, and that he was a big deal among terrorist organizations [the FBI investigated this little punk Mateen for 10 months, interviewed him with an under-cover agent, and then had 2 formal interviews with him, before finally finding he was 'all talk' and had no actual affiliations to any organizations]
Granted, much of what comes out as "News Coverage" immediately following such horrific and despicable acts is frequently inaccurate. But it has been 36 hours, and Actual Journalists like Chris Hayes are on the scene, interviewing people who had friends killed, who had been at the night club before the shooting, who had talked to this turd Mateen on gay men's hook-up aps, and the stories are being reported in the LA Times, Washington Post, and other reputable, researched, long-standing journalistic sources. Even the shooter's own father has told reporters that his son was not stable and angrily blew up when he saw openly expressive gay people with public displays of affection. Nobody ever loved nor will ever love dead Omar.
So wether it is a public marathon in Boston, an African American church in Charleston, a Californian social worker office, an armored US Army Texas military base (Ft Hood), or an elementary school in Connecticut, each of these delusional, hateful, fearful, unloved, incapable-of-loving, heavily armed, NRA endorsed, socially out-cast, social rejects continue to inflict pain and sorrow upon American citizens who have DONE NOTHING to them. Meanwhile, complete dumbasses like Drumpf try to say they "predicted" this, and thank themselves for their inaccurate self-proclaimed false prescience.
Congratulations to Walmart & Dick's Sporting Goods for no longer selling AR-15s (following Sandy Hook, and the potential of class action law suits and horrible publicity). Shame on every other gun dealer, gun show participant, re-seller, and NRA stalwart who continues to try and defend "the right" for every miscreant, dumbass, and confused little boy in America to buy & own assault weapons. What pathetic hunters and terribly inaccurate marksmen they must be! (I used to be qualified as a 'Sharpshooter" by the NRA, 35 years ago... and can still hold my own at a gun range [indoor or outdoor] with a BOLT Action rifle. A real man doesn't need a semi-auto nor automatic rifle to defend himself, period. Anyone who disagrees is compensating for their lack of marksmanship, or their inadequacies in the bed room or elsewhere.
Love will always over-rule fear and hatred. Fear & hate are effective in the short term, but over the log term love will Always win out.
While shopping at the Carlsbad COSTCO yesterday afternoon, and talking to my dad on the phone, I passed by an end cap in the alcohol area of the store that had $8 Domaine Bousquet Malbec, 2015. "Made with Organically Grown Grapes" in the Tupungato Valley in Argentina, I had it last night with a grass fed sirloin steak, grilled to medium rare. It was really pretty good, especially at $8 a bottle.
Dr Desert Flower tried a few sips last night, and liked it too - so it is not "just me". This evening, while watching coverage of Republicans distancing themselves from Donald Trump on the evening cable news, I am finishing the bottle's last two glasses. Still very nice. I recommend it.
Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a foreign policy speech yesterday in my own backyard, San Diego. Her audience was full of supporters, many of whom were veterans and their families. I DVR'ed the speech, and watched it over lunch today.
While I've not been a huge Hillary Clinton supporter, I did admire her unwithering and strong response to the Republican held marathon Benghazi hearings, which showed she was not culpable of anything nefarious in regards to the embassy attack there. Hillary Clinton's San Diego speech on June 2nd was factual, poignant, articulate and informative, even though it was somewhat nationalistic.
But what I will do, dear readers & visitors, is to list the factual gems that I took from the speech, the ones that really hit home, had impact, and (as I watched the video) brought the crowd to their feet.
"Smart & Principled Foreign Policy"
"Choice between a fearful America that's less secure and engaged with he world, and a strong, confident America"
"Donald Trump's (Drumpf's) ideas are not just different, they are dangerous incoherent. A series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and out right lies." [I Loved that quote]
"He is not just unprepared, he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability, and immense responsibility."
"It's not hard to imagine Donald Trump (Drumpf) getting us into a war just because someone got under his Very Thin Skin."
"He says he doesn't have to listen to generals, admirals, ambassadors or diplomats, because he says, and I quote" 'I have a very good brain.'"
"He praises dictators."
"He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia."
"He says we are, and I quote: 'A third world country'"
[Having Just visited a third world country in April, I can refute that America is a 'third world country']
"We are not a country who cowers behind walls."
"Moscow and Beijing are deeply envious of our alliances around the world. They have nothing to match them."
"If Donald gets his way, they'll be celebrating in the Kremlin."
"We are lucky to have two friendly neighbors on our land borders; why would he want ti make one of them an enemy?"
"He said this about a war between North Korea and Japan, and I quote: 'If they do, they do; Good luck, enjoy yourselves folks.'"
"Our approach must be 'distrust and verify.'"
"There's no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf course deal."
"He brings the following tools to the table: Bragging, mockery, and composing nasty tweets."
"I don't understand Donald Trump's (Drumpf's) fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America. He praises China for the Tiananmen massacre, saying it showed strength."
"He said if he was grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he'd give him an A."
"I will leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants."
"He said maybe Syria should be a free zone for ISIS?" ... A Trump (Drumpf) presidency would embolden ISIS."
"This isn't reality television, this is actual reality."
"We cannot put the lives of our troops in Donald Trump's (Drumpf's) hands."
"During the raid to kill Bin Laden, our Seals took the time to move the women and children to safety. Donald Trump (Drumpf) may not get it, but that's what honor looks like."
"It matters when he
- makes fun of people with disabilities
- calls women pigs
- proposes banning an entire religion from our country
- or plays coy with white supremacists"
"America stands up to countries who treat women like animals, or different races, religions, or ethnicities as less human."
"Plenty of Muslims and immigrants serve and fight in our armed forces."
"Making the right call takes a cool head and respect FOR THE FACTS. It takes a willingness to listen to other peoples' points of view with a truly open mind. It also takes humility, knowing you don't know everything because if you are convinced you're always right, you'll never ask yourself the hard questions."
"Imagine Donald Trump (Drumpf) sending you spouses and children into battle."
"Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account, but America's entire arsenal. Do we want someone thin skinned and quick to anger who lashes out at the smallest criticism?"
"Every lesson from our history teaches us that we are stronger together. We remember that every Memorial Day."
"Two very different visions; angry, afraid, and based on the idea that America is fundamentally weak and in decline. The other is hopeful, generous, and confident in the knowledge that America is great just as we always have been!"
I thought the speech was fact-filled, and addressed the FUNDAMENTAL difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Drumpf. One is an experience, rational thinker, and experienced diplomat - maybe I don't agree with everything she's done and stood for, but at least I know what those things are. The other, is a thin skinned, egomaniacal failed business man who inherited his fortune from his rich daddy, and who has no filter on anything he says aloud or on Twitter.
I am somewhat sad that Bernie Sanders will probably not be the nominee for the Democrats, but it will probably help me more on my taxes that he's not the candidate, and, Hillary Clinton will likely get more done facing a Republican congress than Bernie Sanders would have been able to do.
If Donald J Drumpf wins, then this blog will stop in 2017 or 2018, once a post apocalyptic nuclear Winter descends on the northern hemisphere of the planet. Australia and New Zealand would becomeisolated quarantine zones where sheep and mankind live out the rest of their days breathing air through filters to avoid the heavier alpha particles that the jet streams will carry across the equator to rain down a slow radioactive death Down Under, while the Northern Hemisphere plays a day-to-day game of kill-or-be-killed in the smoldering ruins of what is left of North America, Europe, and most of Asia.
Jon Batiste, the Stay Human band leader on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, has - I believe - borrowed from Howard Jones. Each time I hear The Late Show's theme song Humanism, the chord progression and rhythm at the end of the song strongly resembles Howard Jones song Things Can Only Get Better.
Borrowing part of a song is no rare thing. Rush borrowed the bass line in Enemy Within from Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear The Reaper. And Led Zeppelin "borrowed" entire tracks from other artists, usually uncredited (don't get me started...)
Back in 2015, Scott Adams - the Dilbert creator and trained hypnotist - predicted that Donald J Drumpf would win the 2016 United States general election for President "in a landslide". I was not aware of this, until I watched Real Time with Bill Maher last night on DVR.
And after this interview, I decided I will begin stock piling ammunition, lumber, batteries, canned food, fuel, potable water, and the essentials to make it through a post-apocalyptic hellscape that America will become after Donald J Drumpf starts a war with some aggravated country who he thinks he can "negotiate with". I don't know if it will be Pakistan, or North Korea, or a consortium of the BRIC countries... but Donald will inevitably Tweet or Broadcast or inflame some nation that will then launch an EMP device, or relate a biological agent or contaminate the drinking water or breathable air, and much of America, if not all of it, will be caught up in the conflagration.
I visited shooting ranges in Arizona and California during the Obama administration, and sure there were many posters for "Obama, the greatest gun sales man ever" put up by ignorant fear mongers who questioned the President's citizenship, thought he was a secret Muslim, and that he was going to destroy America. How did that work out for y'all, dumbasses? All you did was drive up the price of ammo for yourselves, fools. The demise of America these hyperbolic & myopic nationalists predicted Never came to fruition, and won't come to fruition, while there is an intelligent, educated, thoughtful, rational resident of The White House. American will be fine until at least the first week of November 2016. After that, if Scott Adams is right, and Donald J Drumpf wins in a land slide as predicted, leveraging his persuasive marketing techniques on a gullible and stupid populace, all bets are off. President Camacho from Idiocracy would be a better leader than Donald J. Drumpf.
Kalltstadt Germany is the ancestral home of more than one famous American. (LA Times link here) Teresa Kerry Heinz, of the Heinz ketchup fortune, has family roots in Kallstadt. But her fame & actual fortune pales in comparison to Kallstadt's more recently famous, or infamous son, Donald Drumpf, the self proclaimed "Billionaire" who has bamboozled and thrilled his willing throngs to vote for him in the 2016 Republican primary with his attacks on immigrants, Muslims, and other fictional foes that gullible Umerikuns easily blame for anything that is wrong in their lives.
You see, I won't call Donald J. Drumpf by the family name his grand-father changed it to, out of principle. My father immigrated to the US legally in the 1950s, coming from worn-torn post-WWII Germany & Poland, and Did Not change our family name. Ellis Island spelled it exactly as my Grandmother and Catholic Charities (who sponsored my family's immigration to the US, through a priest of the same last name) had it spelled on the immigration documents.
I call Donald J Drumpf Kallstadt's greatest hypnotist because after watching Scott Adams last night on Real Time With Bill Maher, I came to understand that Drumpf is truly an effective hypnotist of the willing, gullible, feeble-minded, and easily persuaded. To someone like me, who relies on facts, and not rhetoric or fear, I see Drumpf as the failed small-town German circus clown he truly is. Frighteningly, millions of my fellow American citizens have fallen for his shtick; hook, line, and sinker. (more on that on the next post).
I wonder how well Drumpf Steaks, Drumpf University, Drumpf Recession Proof Vitamins, Drumpf Wine, Drumpf Airlines, Drumpf Casinos, and Drumpf Real Estate would have done, if they had not been re-branded with the imaginary name Donald's father created? The world will never know... and if Scott Adams is right, a year from now in May or June 2017, just 4 or 5 months after this circus clown, con-man, serial liar, bankruptor, thin-skinned, no-filter, man-baby takes office after winning "in a land slide", we'll be sifting through the ashes of a post-apocalyptic world where North Korea, or Pakistan, or someone launches a pre-emptive strike after Donald's mouth has offended them, and President Drumpf retaliates in a rapid escalation that makes Doom, or Quake, or Halo appear to be a more tame and livable world than where we'll ne in 2017. After the first week of November on 2016, I'll be stock piling canned food, ammunition, fuel and clean water, in an effort to take care of my family for as long as I can and trying to get the Carlsbad desalination plant back online with the remnants of civilization.
I had to travel to Eastern China last month, for work. I took a larger checked suit case since it was a 12 day trip, and I already know that Chinese hotel laundry (even in the nice hotels in which I've stayed) destroys most of the clothes I've ever given them. In that larger suit case I packed my yoga mat, after I practiced yoga the week before at the beach, for 3 of the previous 7 days leading up to the trip.
The weather in Northern San Diego County cooperated nicely before I left, being mild, and not rainy in the afternoons. The on-shore breeze was pleasant, and the statis flowers were in full bloom on the Bluff at the top of Ponto Beach.
Once I landed in Shanghai, after a 14 hour flight in coach out of LAX, I planned a solid day of not working to adjust to the new time zone and to try and avoid deep vein thrombosis. The view from the yoga mat in my hotel room window was less pleasant than the view from the Carlsbad shore. No whales, no pelicans, no pleasant breeze... but a locked large city park with formidable gates, that (apparently) no in Pudong are allowed to pass through on Wednesdays?
While Shanghai today is a MUCH cleaner and prettier city than Chengdu was 15 years ago, it still is not even a fraction as lovely as Southern Coastal California is, even if the real estate prices are similar. I'll take here rather than there, any day.
The day after I got back, I did yoga at the beach!
I would have POSTED this while in China... just one problem. The government there blocks FaceBook, Google, Instagram, Gmail, Youtube, and Twitter. Yes... one can VPN out and around them, but what a massive pain in the ass, China. Thanks.
As a native Hoosier, having lived the first 2 decades of my life there... being born there... getting my college education there... filing my taxes there for many years... having owned a home in Monroe County there for more than 7 years... I am astonished at how many gullible, misinformed, base-ball-cap-wearing, fake-Oakley-wearing, inarticulate, moronic, passionate Trump supporters there are in Indiana.
I have yet to meet a single, articulate, intelligent Trump supporter who can explain to me, logically, without hatred or bigotry or easily-debunked-psuedo-facts, why they are a Trump supporter, and why other Americans should become Trump supporters. Trump is so often wrong, and always inflammatory, that no normal, logical, fact-based-thinking individual can actually justify, calmly, and without vitriol, why they support him. I understand why Bernie won Indiana... I would have voted for him if I was still a Hoosier, as he is the under-dog outsider who is anti-establishment, self-funded, and not beholden to corporate or billionaire interests. But Trump is an empty suit, a vacuous loud-mouth who easily dupes the misinformed and willfully uninformed to flock to his support in the primaries.
Wilmore Trump
I wish I was not registered as an Independent in California, as that makes it much harder to vote in the Democrat or Republican primaries... but... that's what having to travel to Asia for 2 weeks for business in April during primary registration season does for a permanently "vote by mail" citizen. Oh well.
The preferred explosive of the failed ideology that calls itself "ISIS" is TATP, triacetate triperoxide. They've leveraged the extensive Palestinian bomber experience use in the explosive, and re-purposed it for attacking soft civilian targets in Europe by returning EU citizens who failed on the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields to have any impact, and now want to attack unsuspecting Europeans. The dead Paris attackers used it in their suicide vests, and the dead Belgian attackers used it in Brussels. The civilized Western World will continue to see this relatively easy-to-make explosive used by the cowardly disaffected radicalized Muslims who feel they have no future in a civilized world.
Many "experts" have said that there's no way to "harden" airports and other public places to such attacks, but I disagree. Bomb sniffing dogs are IDEAL for this task, and would be able to easily detect plastique, TATP, TNT, or any of a dozen other explosives. They could (and should) be applied curb-side, as people disembark from their cars, taxis, buses, and shuttles, at airports and train stations. They could also be applied at turn styles for subway stations.
Working dogs, like bomb sniffers, love to be worked hard by their handlers. They see the hunt for what they've been trained to sniff as "a game" and they live to make their handlers delighted. The more bags they can sniff, the happier the dog can be. Let them work. Re-purpose ALL the dogs used in Iraq previously looking for IEDs to now look for suicidal, cowardly, stone faced radical fundamentalists. 30 lbs to 100 lbs suit case bombs would be easily found by a well trained work dog.
Drug sniffing dogs - which are far too plentiful and for-the-most-part completely un-necessary in Western society - should be deployed less, and bomb sniffing dogs applied ubiquitously at every airport near a city with more than 1 /2 a million people, with includes just 35 cities in the United States. Thirty Five cities. So 350 bomb sniffing dogs... and a bomber in a vest or pushing a luggage trolley of suit cases full of explosives would have no chance of being successful.
But it's much easier to monger fear... and stir up rhetoric, than to apply a meaningful and straightforward solution.
Cornell’s AllAboutBirds website lists the male Rufous hummingbird as the “most pugnacious” of all hummingbirds. They chase away all other hummingbirds, including the larger Anna’s species who normally dominate any feeder they visit. Dr Desert Flower and I have seen the rust colored Rufous males come in and disrupt other-wise calm feeders as they fan out their tail feathers, buzz, and attack-dive any other bird at the feeder. They can be real assholes.
When I saw an adolescent Rufous male on the little hummingbird perch outside my office window, it amused me to see a mature male, with full crimson ascot, menacing him. The adolescent stood his ground, unmoved by the bigger, brighter, more boisterous older male hovering around him. The ignored older male sat on a branch about a foot above the stationary younger male, and then he got an idea that I’d never seen before. He flew down, hovered just above and behind the younger male, and then mounted him, for a few seconds before the younger male had “enough” and shrugged off the older male, and flew away.
I’ve watched male hummingbirds in Arizona swoop up in the air 200 feet above my pool, and then SWOOP Down amazingly fast, as they advertise to available females their strength, maneuverability, and prowess. This same vertical flight path, supposedly, is how the hummingbirds copulate before they hit the ground. But seeing the mature male mount the juvenile to shoo him away from the coveted nectar feeders, was the first time I’ve ever seen one hummingbird sexually assault another male. I’ve seen dogs, and horses, and rabbits do this… but this was the first time I’ve seen a bird do it.
Cornell’s site says that Rufous are only migratory through California, and that they Winter in Mexico, and that they Summer in Canada… but we see them all year around here in North San Diego County.
6 Hummingbirds, all females and immature males, sharing the feeder in the back yard.
Last Friday, I decided I didn't want to look at a bare, tan wall outside of my office, and changes needed to be made. I drove to Lowes, and found potted jasmine, mandevilla, and organic potting soil. I loaded them up into the XC70 and made planting plans for Saturday morning.
Saturday morning, after sleeping late (no kids, no dogs, no grand kids... why not sleep late?) I got up and began digging holes. In-between the tomato racks that are in the eastern, narrow side yard, I dug two holes, each more than a foot deep and more than two feet wide, right next to the wall. Hand digging, with a small pick, so as not to shatter or rupture any sprinkler lines, or other buried, unseen hazards, it was a sweaty endeavor to dig the holes. Mixing the potting soil and the loosened soil, I transformed the space outside my office from this:
To this:
The scent of jasmine and citrus-trees-in-bloom now fill my side yard. The weather was warm enough today for me to open the large window of my office as I worked to not only hear the hummingbirds sparring and vying for the nectar feeders, but I could also smell the delicious floral aromas wafting through the window.
It's not the "warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air" - which Urban Dictionary has clarified that is slang for pot smoke (foxtails... with the Spanish word for "tail", cola, in the diminutive form for "little tail", "colitas"... but it is wonderful nevertheless. My own personal Hotel California is a pleasant place. If you've not come visited us, you should. If you've already come & visited us, come again. We don't have any kids, or dogs, or grand kids... and our guest bed room is kept clean and ready for your visit. = )
(What we Thought was a lime tree [from the scent of the leaves and their oils] appears to be a lemon tree, with blossoms, scent, and lemon tree thorns, right outside my window. Either way... they'll be organic citrus for our eating and drinking pleasure!)
Many of my close friends and family know that for the last year+ I have been grappling with extremely dry skin that was flaking off in ridiculous amounts, leaving a "trail of Joe" in rooms, in cars, on chairs, on couches, just about everywhere I'd go. While my loved ones would tell me not to worry about it, and that it "wasn't that bad", leaving a cloud of (what I thought was) dead skin anywhere that I stayed for any length of time, it was hard to not get very grossed out by the flaking and "snow" my arms and back and face were shedding, constantly. A close look in the mirror, and all I could see was hundreds of "hang nails" all over my fore-head, cheeks, ears, earlobes, chin, neck and arms. "How can any human shed so much skin?" - I'd ask myself, frequently.
Turns out, it wasn't skin, for the most part at least. It was dried moisturizer that had gone from liquid to solid and then was being shed by my skin as it tried to breathe beneath the rapidly drying hypoallergenic coating. My dermatologist had recommended I use Vanicream lotion, so I did, by the tub - $16 a tub, about once a week - a white paste that was rather oily and sticky. Vanicream makes a "Lite" lotion, in a pump bottle, that is less thick, less oily, and leaves less residue. Only thing is... the flaking persisted. And the flaking was still gross.
Concentrated Epsom Salt baths (3 lbs in about10 inches of water), every 3 or 4 days, soaking for 30 minutes in the luke-warm water (not warm, just tepid, so as not to aggrevate my skin further) helped to ex-foliate and "slough off" the flakes. And the 30 minute soaks were / are a nice form of meditation to slow heart rate, breathing, and lower blood pressure. So it had secondary health benefits as well... but there had to be a better way.
Turns out, my mother-in-law had a better solution all along. Coconut Oil. She'd been trying it for some time and kept telling Dr Desert Flower I should use it for my flaking. On Monday, I switched over from slathering myself in Vanicream, to dipping my fingers into the Trader Joe's virgin, organic, $5 a jar coconut oil, pulling out the hard white paste which instantly begins to melt with body temperature, and put it on my face and arms. Fantastic! It feels soothing. It smells awesome. It is completely natural. It calms urticaria (welted up, hives). It doesn't stain clothing. And it doesn't generate even 1/10th as much flaking. Yes, some skin still sloughs off, in a very small amount. The Vanicream cream was horribly flake causing. The Vanicream lite, about 1/2 or 1/3rd as much "white snow" generating. The coconut oil... less than 10% as much as the Vanicream lite.
Look at the ingredients... and then work backwards as to what is causing the white flaking. It's not dead skin. It's dried lotion... as I was going through crazy amounts of moisturizer every day. And the Vanicream required re-application several times an hour. That's several times an hour in my office. Several times an hour while driving for 3 days to South Carolina. Several times an hour while flying back from South Carolina to California. Now, I am applying a very small amount of pure coconut oil to my face and arms about once every 3 or 4 hours. I have the pleasant fragrance of coconut instead of the medicinal scent of moisturizer (even though it is all hypoallergenic) wafting up to my nostrils. The coconut oil doesn't seem to block my pores so my face doesn't over-heat and dry out as it did with the moisturizer. The coconut oil also has antibacterial properties that have helped my irritated, red, dry, cracked eye lids to heal up and stop being so unpleasant. The coconut oil leaves no paste or dried residue on the skin, that would (inevitably) cause more itching, which would then (in turn) cause more redness, more scratching, more release of histamines and a continuation of the vicious & destructive cycle.
Additionally, the Saturated Fatty Acids (SFAs) that make up 85% of the coconut oil are far better for humans than the poly-unsaturated-fatty-acids that are in some nuts and margarine and most cooking oils. Not only will I continue applying it to my skin, but I will be cooking with it, and ingesting it as well.
Natural remedies, when proven over centuries, and when not allergic, are typically far better than industrialized, artificial, expensive, patented and mass-marketed commercial solutions. Stevia is FAR BETTER for humans than Nutrasweet, Sweet-n-low, Equal, or the laboratory created "Truvia" which is really just a pointless recreation of what already grows naturally, stevia rebaudiana. Coconut oil, I now see the same way. Far better than aisles and aisles of moisturizers and creams that Target and the local pharmacies all carry. And much cheaper, much more pleasant, less annoying.
One of my favorite Coconut References... from Zombieland... "It's not the taste, it's the consistency!"
Jesse Drucker has an excellent piece in Bloomberg News this week, (link here) about how Donald Trump is using his son in law's company (Jared Kushner) to get cheap Chinese financing for buildings with Trump's name licensed on them, in exchange for getting not only quick and effective investor 2 year visas for the richest Chinese, who don't have to wait in line or earn it the hard way, as 98% of most immigrants, but also permanent residency for the investor and his family. All it takes is $500,000 of investment in an American company, and if that investment creates jobs, then after 2 years, the rich Chinese investor gets to come and go into The United States as they please (can't come and go into and out of China as you please, as visas are required) and have permanent residency in the US.
While the program has been around for 25 years, in the last 5 to 6 years it has really taken off with Chinese investors who don't care about a return on investment, they just want the green card. 10,000 EV-5 visas given out last year by the US, with 85% of them to China.
"They’ve taken our jobs, they’ve taken our money, they’ve taken everything," Trump has said, calling it the "Greatest single theft". Trump is raising money through a government program that many regulators see as "very troubled", and could be enabling dirty money from criminal ventures to enter the US economy. Congress is worried that Chinese money laundering is happening with these rich investors, who have virtually no vetting... money talks.
Yeah, Donald Trump knows the Chinese. He's been taking their money. "Good at buziness." Sure.
