With so much security prevention, thieves are developing prevention-resistance!

Recently, an email from my client came through with something for everyone:

Be careful about how you park (with the passenger side doors facing away from the rest of the lot, etc.) and how thieves can now manage to break in without you noticing. (I'm not passing along the step-by-step on how they do that.) The point was that they took one small item but left the GPS system alone, which shocked a colleague: "Oh no, he said, they want the break-in to be so subtle that you don't even realize it."

What we got from this was they look at your GPS to see where "home" is. Now they know what you drive, go to your home, and if your vehicle isn't there they assume you aren't and break in your home." Another subtlety is to leave a purse or wallet and only take one or two credit cards, or checks from the middle section of a check book. By the time you realize there has been a theft, they may have already had a couple days or more to use them. This is another reason they want the break-in to go unnoticed.

The take-home message: remove from the GPS unit home address as "home." Put in a local Wal-Mart address or somewhere else. Park the vehicle in a highly visible place, and keep valuables with you. Most importantly, it may keep the thieves from showing up at home.

Oh, and it may help to periodically walk around your car and check for holes near the door handle. (You can also imagine a blue gas that envelopes the car and repels all harm-doers. That seemed to work for me in New Haven, Conn.--the car-theft capitol of the world.)

________________________________

Still more of the white stuff....

"Snow has become a four-letter word."
--Chattanooga, Tenn NPR radio station this morning.

I Am Where The Snow is Not!

In cold, but dry, no-snow, Tennessee...(really, am not missing the shoveling.)
Watching the new Ricky Gervais show on HBO. Hilarious, but maybe just a tad crude. A 30-minute live action talk show literally turns into an animation talk show--British accents and all. 9 pm Friday night.
Is this part of the graphic-ing of reality TV?

Are Plans Possible in an Age of Global Connectedness?

Is really possible for a country to make an economic plan projecting out, let's say, 5 or 10 years, when we are living in an increasingly interconnected global economy?

This question turned up in my head this morning while watching a Sunday talk show segment. Govs. Rendell (PA) and Schwartzeneggar (CA) were discussing the health of the US economy--Is it getting better or worse?
Both saw indicators at the state level that would suggest it's on the mend--just be optimistic and not overly enthusiastic, as much work is still needed.
Forming better infrastructures to maintain the economy came up, and Washington needs to get better at making plans.

As far as I know, even the best, well thought-out plans don't always pan out, largely due to the change in culture in which they are made. In this case, make that plural--cultures--with economies appearing over the past 5 year that make headlines now, but were developing countries 15 years ago.

If something dire happens in one country, how likely will it impact other countries around the world? For instance, how about all the mortgage-backed securities failing in this country, troubling both European banks and the Chinese? Or Greece and Portugal putting a hiccup into the world stock markets with their debt declarations, until the European Union stepped in to catch out these newest member nations? Or the U.S. ability to recall loans after lending so much money to South American nations back in the 80s and 90s? California is considered to be among the top 8 economies IN THE WORLD. What happens in California could be a harbinger of what's to come to the rest of the U.S., good or bad.

I have been shorted by thousands of dollars by non-paying tenants in rent money in the past 2 years. My only recourse is to find a job so I can pay for what they couldn't... my mortgage. Apart from one hand feeding another, what other plan exists? (There's that interconnectedness thing, again.)

Maybe we should take it up a notch:
Will going global in economic planning make a difference?
Maybe we should think bigger, now that we are all connected.

Musings for the day.

Nutrition that supports sleep....

Nutrients in salmon, beans, yogurt, and spinach, can be forerunners to a restful sleep, according to RealAge.com (A Web site run by Oprah's physician consultant, Dr. Emhet Oz), which is citing Eat Your Way to Happiness by Elizabeth Somer, RD as its reference.

And courtesy whitehouse.gov....


The ladies of The View, blew out any warped reasonings about why Haiti's experiencing this tragedy. On their Thursday 1/14/2010 show, they discussed the country's misfortune and the significance of helping Haiti to rebuild itself.

Did You Notice?

Haiti: Go to WhiteHouse.gov and CNN.com/impact, for ways to help. Donations, from $10 to $100, will go a long way in these early days.

Martin Luther King's Birthday: Declared a day of service.

Foreign accents: What's the deal with TV audiences being treated to folks with accents (Easy-Off is one example) or foreign actors coached in American accents. (Two cast members on Brothers & Sisters; 1 on The Mentalist; 1 on now-defunct Eli Stone; and 1 on Gray's Anatomy, are just a
few that spring to mind.) What does it say about people and their semi-conscious or unconscious objectifying of others? My thinking at the moment is world citizenship is more at play than any one nation will ever admit, but nationality and ethnicity tend to polarize people around physical appearance and language. Onwards with the diversity movement!

Well-armed body: More tips for strong-body nutrition (not "diet," which suggests weight loss)... Freeze-dried black raspberries contain even more cancer-fighting anthocyanins than fresh berries do. And freeze-dried fruit can keep for over a year. Freeze-drying the berries concentrates the nutrition, but attenuates it as well. Check this out...

Objectifying women discussion on The View, on Wed. 1/13/2010. Catch up on ABC.com.

Signing off,

Tasha

More Strong Body/Strong Mind, Better Able

More good info for the health- & body-strengthening nutrition department, which ultimately has its consequences in our mind- and spirit-health. (You need to have a body to be spiritual with!)

Please note the deliberate steps to avoid the word "anti-cancer." For moi, it implies you have to have cancer in order to want to take steps to avoid it. Nutrition and life style strengthen our ability to resist and/or better manage our lives, which are exposed to a host of diseases and stresses.

Enough spiel... so curry, tumeric, black pepper folks... add it in your cooking and eating programs.

Interesting as lately, I'm craving lettuce, olive oil, and black pepper combinations. Hmm...

Check out: Health Discovery: Curry, Black Pepper May Help Prevent Breast Cancer.

Armed body, Stronger body & Broccoli-cheese soup

You can see I'm more planetary-bound today...

While watching ABC's GMA on TV this morning, I was struck by a physician's personal account about using nutrition to help his body better fight a recurring brain cancer.

Largely plant- and grain-based, the life-style Dr. David Servan-Schreiber is espousing specifically includes the powerful effects of tumeric and certain fats (olive oil). He suggested reducing meat consumption, too. While stress doesn't necessarily cause cancer, he observed first-hand how it weakens the body's ability to fight cancer. Go to an excerpt of his book.

While you're there, check out this easy recipe for
broccoli and cheese soup.

Ciao for now.

We enter a new decade... or are we what's new?

As we embark on a new year, in a new decade, one has to wonder about the nature of change.
Is there anything we will see happen differently this year? Or, will we be seeing things happening--now, as before--differently? Nothing like a good conundrum with which to start the year.
~Tasha

Sunday in Tennessee on the last day of May

As I sit here today, ODing on the French Open and relishing its ups and downs, it's a fine Sunday in Tennessee.

Yesterday, I attended a terrific workshop on writing structure and marketing, so there's much to think about. (It kept me up in the middle of night analyzing the movie I just say, "Paris 36," which has a solid three-act structure.)

Okay, before everything is lost, tennis notes: Nadal lost! Both Williams sisters lost in women's doubles and Venus in the 4th round singles; but hey, Andy Roddick is making it [finally] to the quarterfinals!

Now, about that fine Sunday...my gardens are blooming "en abondance."
Here's are some reasons why (apart from all that rain we just got):
>The roses maybe helped along with the coffee grinds--They are all ENORMOUS.
>The vegetable garden is yielding Swiss chard, cilantro, and basil that adds a specifcally strong taste to Cold Green Soup (e-mail me if you want this summer-time recipe)
>My herb garden is yielding at least a kilos worth of Greek oregano (some of which is subjected to my cat spraying on it, but otherwise tastes pretty good).

What's up in your yards?

Okay, truth be told, this is Natasha FORCING herself to update her posts on the blog and venture into connecting it to her Facebook and Twitter networks. Yes, all you so-called friends, you're about to hear from me, but in ways you hadn't imagined. Please bear with me in these experiments to keep everyone so well informed, you'll pay me to remove you from my networks.

Who would have thought of that as a revenue stream?!

Cheers,

Natasha