Jim > Recent Status Updates

Last update before review: p.170 Something round and dirty and white was resting near my foot. It was a skull, I picked it up. “Is that you, Nicholas?” I asked. “Put that down, Peter,” said Nightingale. “You don’t know where it’s been.”

p. 79 “A troll, really?” I asked. “His name is Nathaniel,” said Nightingale. “He used to sleep under Hungerford Bridge.” “Why did he move?” I asked. “Apparently he wanted to live in the suburbs.”

Many doctors believe, like Ana’s Dr. Cosford, that autism, chronic fatigue, and a variety of other chronic illnesses all involve a deterioration of the biological systems that help us cope with the environment. To Cosford and others, the autism is not a “thing” or “specific disease” but the way the brain and body behave when their cells are having a hard time.

Awesome book! Finished, but will post a few updates. p. 39 “You remember that guy we arrested for assault last week?” “How could I forget.” I’d been shoved into a wall during the struggle. “I think you hit your head much harder than you thought,” she said.

6%“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve taken your feedback on board and having extensively workshopped it this morning, I now feel that I can pursue my core career development goals in a diligent, proactive, but, above all, creative manner.”

What's going on in the brain? ~35%: Examining why children with autism have big brains, studies show a lower density of cell metabolites, more fluid where there should be cell fibers, and lower brain activity where these problems occur. Brain-imaging studies suggest that the extra “stuff” making the brains bigger could be made up of fluid. It’s more evidence that the cells are not working at their best.

"The woman had been digging through her suitcase. I saw a flash, a glint of light on metal. She'd pulled out a meat cleaver. She waved it frantically, slashing the air above the two little kids' heads."

Last update before review--- p.107 "You think the thing you call consciousness is some mysterious gift from the heavens, but in the end consciousness is nothing but the context in which your thinking occurs. Consciousness is the feel of accessing memory."

"The scrap of T-shirt tied around my mouth and nose kept drying out. When it got dry, the tiny ash particles came through it, coating the inside of my mouth with nasty-tasting sludge and bringing on coughing fits."

p. 98 "...the world does not pass through me. It lingers. I am in it and it is in me. I am the means by which the universe has come to know itself. I am the thing no machine can ever make. I am meaning."

SUPERVOLCANO!!!

(finished, but will post a few updates before review)---
from p. 83 " "I'm going to power down now. But my sensors will remain active. So you only have to say, if you want to talk. It's getting better, don't you think? You don't hate me as much as yesterday, do you?" "

All of the questions regarding treatment options are complicated. 25%: "There are three issues here: 1) Is there really any toxic body burden in the first place, and if so, does it matter? 2) Do the body’s detoxification processes really need help? 3) If so, is helping them with good nutrition and other natural support enough? On all three of these, medical evidence is thin and controversy is substantial."

This book is amazing... from p. 32: "...it was unreasonable for him to take it upon himself to make such a decision on behalf of the nation. He was no expert in virology. Nevertheless, I believe those who feel the urge to understand Adam's heroism instinctively understand the importance of empathy."

Last update before review: "We thought it would shock both sides into seeing reason— that they would stare at each other across the table and someone would blink. But nobody blinked."

Loving this book! from p. 12: "What we do know is that Adam was born into the Philosopher class. At the end of his first year, he underwent the normal physiological testing and had his genome read. His learning status was confirmed but a warning was placed on his file. At least two genetic markers flagged a possible unpredictability in his behavior."

I finished the book, but will post a couple more updates before I review. " "She believed that if someone actually gets unwound, then they never had a soul to begin with. She said God must know who’s going to be unwound, and he doesn’t give them souls.” Diego grunts his disapproval. “I don’t like the sound of that.” "

from p. 111: "He doesn’t tell Risa what’s in store for her. Somehow telling her would be stealing something from her. Let this be between her, Sonia, the pen, and the page, as it had been for him."

22% "Toxins almost definitely made things worse for Ana. She grew up in an industrial town, and her childhood home backed up onto a regional airport. The air often smelled like a steel mill, she says. Tests in her mid-twenties revealed that Ana’s bloodstream had high levels of contaminants from jet fuel and heavy metals found only in industry."

"Fishing, as many of you know, is a very tedious activity. Fish are stubborn and do not like to be killed and eaten. One has to stay very still, so still one almost falls asleep, and even then no fish might come. Even the moon busied himself elsewhere, watching a pine forest full of martens and Harpies chase each other round in circles."

from p. 47: "Risa finds herself unsettled by the food wrappers and broken bits of plastic they start coming across in the woods, because the first sign of civilization is always trash."

"I...I think they must be spriggans," said Ell, embarrassed. Naturally, he could offer no further illumination on anything that so rudely insisted on beginning with S."

Had a fabulous time at the Magic Kingdom today! This old man wimped out a while ago and limped back to the hotel room. Mom and boys are still out there - I heard the big fireworks display a while ago, so they should be back soon. I think we took about 1200 pics today, so there should be some good ones in there. Will have a look through them tonight, but may not get any posted until tomorrow..:) It was awesome!

“If you are a dryad, where is your tree?” ---- “Film is made of camphor, which IS a tree. In the cinnamon family, to be exact, which is large and boisterous and gossipy. I run the projector, and my trees run through my fingers all day long! Just because a thing is transparent and silvery and comes in big reels, doesn’t mean it’s not a tree.”

"When Ana’s chronic fatigue syndrome was treated at the cellular level, her autism melted away... Ana did not simply have a mind problem causing her fatigue, or a brain problem causing her autism. She had a whole-body health problem causing both."

"Children are generally exposed to more toxins than adults. Children spend more time on the floor than adults, kicking up, breathing, and swallowing the dust and dirt that collects there. They put all kinds of things in their mouths that adults are never exposed to. They get sick from germs to which adults are already immune. They take more medications to get rid of those..."

p. 50 "When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. that does not mean it IS brighter and lovelier; it just means that sweet, kindly home suffers in comparison to tarted-up foreign places with all their jewels on."

"I believe that autism is not a genetic tragedy, but rather an unfolding and unprecedented challenge related to many other health and environmental crises. We need to build a world that makes us healthy."

"Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble."

3% "If I believed that autism was a genetically determined, lifelong brain impairment, then I would have to deny to myself the extraordinary capabilities and changes I saw in my patients. If I believed what I saw, then I would have to rethink everything I knew about autism. That’s what I proceeded to do, and you are reading the result of that exploration."