WELCOME ABOARD the Neverending Ocean Cruise!

Welcome to the deep end,
Glad To Have You Here
...where we find shorter spaces between us.
-- Bobby Ocean

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

LAVE SUS MANOS

IF YOU KNOW HOW...

It's almost here!  In July the Food Safety Law, otherwise known as SB 602, goes into effect. That, however, is not the most fascinating piece of news in this particular state-wide story. What's disturbing is: practically no one knows about it.

According to the new edict, all food service employees, must take and pass the California Food Handler Training test by July 1, 2011. Not only is the date already here, most restaurants don't even know such a law has come into being.

As July unfolds, it appears there may be a whole new herd of criminals. If you look,  you'll see a profusion of restaurant owners and their employees breaking the new law, named "SB 602," or "The California Food Handler Card Law." And with good reason. For the most part, restaurants, at least in San Francisco, apparently haven’t even been officially notified.

Did you know about this? The bill was signed into law six months ago, goes into force this month, and requires California restaurant employees must now take the mandatory training in food safety.

Food Safety doesn't mean they're trying to avoid cruelty or accidental injury to a Harris steak or Cobb Salad. It's aimed at protecting your digestive system.

While it’s a law for which anyone would most probably show strong approval, its lack of an official announcement signals weak intention. And nervous food workers.

The few who have heard about it are feeling a range of emotions from perturbation to full tilt anxiety as they learn they are each expected to pay a tuition, take the course, and pass it. Then, when they win their Food Handler Safety Card, good for three years, it must be secured in their employers' file.

Most in the food industry know nothing about this, but the minority of employees that do, are clambering to find the two-hour, $15 test, hoping to meet the deadline.

Readers of this blog may have a few questions of their own.

Why, for example, there are still hundreds of places that haven’t heard about the new law? Or the test? Or where to take it?

Why, also, do you suppose, is the new Food Handler Safety Card Law course offered only in two languages - English or Spanish? At this writing, employees who speak only Chinese, for example, are pretty much out of the food service loop for now. Why is that? Does the Health Department assume only certain races qualify for this kind of food safety?

Or is this one of those deals that wasn't properly thought out?

And how will this new unpublicized ruling be enforced? Well, that will be the task of the county health departments, who are responsible for notifying restaurants of the laws and consequent penalties for noncompliance. One imagines a task force, dressed in California gold and brown jumpsuits, converging on suspected eateries, rounding up all the employees and giving them a good soap and water lathering.

Seriously, how can a law be enforced when no one knows about it? I mean, other than cramming that tired old saw, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," down our pie holes. That's not what we chose from the menu...

Who's in charge here, anyway? Reportedly, the Public information officer Eileen Shields, hadn’t even heard of our new law.

But the Director of Environmental Health Regulatory Programs, Richard Lee, has. He's been meeting with other directors around the state, trying to untangle the wording of the law and thus make it viable. He says "don't panic." Not just yet, anyway.

Lee says his department has not yet apprised any restaurants, as our lawmakers stall the passage of SB 303, in an attempt to clean up the language in the previously written rules. He says his department doesn’t plan to enforce the law until next year; he will send out information in September.

So, remember to wash your hands before chowing down. Eventually the Direstor and his staff WILL start enforcing the law.

The punishment for noncompliance after the Food Handler Law finally does go into effect in another seven months? “I don’t think there will be a fine,” Director of Environmental Health Regulatory Programs, Lee says. (Wanna bet, says I?) “We’ll just note it as a violation.” If the restaurants still don’t comply, the department will take away their health permit to operate.

And force them to scrub behind their fingernails and ears.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

PRIMATE PRESS RELEASE!! TALKING GORILLA BORN!

RARE ADDITION TO BILL YOUNG'S VANILLA GORILLA VOICE ARTIST ZOO

There's a new baby gorilla at the world famous Storyteller Branch of Bill Youngs Amazing Texas based Audio/Video Emporium in Sugar Land. His Vanilla Gorilla section of the Media Zoo is all happy-faced and celebratory. Free bananas for all.

The newest arrival will be called "Bobby Ocean."

The Vanilla Gorilla compound announced very recenty that the blessed event earlier this month is the first gorilla addition in nearly 20 years.

In honor of the new arrival, all microphones are being cleaned and detailed. Fresh straw is being digitally installed.

Vanilla Zoo officials say the mother, 22-year-old Pacifica, a western gorilla, is taking excellent care of the new arrival, who is busily practicing inflections and phrasing into a pretend microphone which is actually a banana. They are attempting to inform the father, a proud male silverback named Kerouac. He's on the road.

While early reports list it as quite "heavy," Vanilla Keepers have not been able to weigh the baby as of yet, and, as it insists on wearing a Speedo Loincloth, the sex has not been determined. We think the answer is "yes."

Officials say, in addition to offering an ample stable of regular primates, the award winning Vanilla Park studios <http://www.vanillagorilla.com/facility.asp> were designed by the best technitions Dallas has to offer and include leading edge edit suites for audio, video, graphics, animation, and website design plus great new rubber tire swings. And, of course, now the Vanilla Gorilla Studios boasts the boldest and most diverse selection of voices from among its western speaking gorillas, a species listed as critically imaginative and inspiring. This is extremely effective and powerful Vanilla.

The Vanilla zoo experts say a newborn gorilla, such as Bobby Ocean, catches on quickly, grows quickly and can talk on its own, interpreting scripted material in a surprisingly short time. All orders for it's vocal services should be planned now, with the addition of easy-to-follow pronunciations for words in excess of three syllables.

The last birth of a gorilla at the Vanilla Gorilla Safari Park was in the previous century.
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Friday, June 17, 2011

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

A Dad's Day Greeting 

...that I found on the net and had to to pass along to Dads everywhere...
(The foot needs to be tapping; click it...)









Sunday, June 5, 2011

SPIRIT AND WORD

BEING INTELLIGENCE AND BEING CLEVER: THE DIFFERENCE

My good friend, Charlie Van Dyke, (KIXL, KVIL, KLIF [Dallas]; CKLW [Detroit]; KFRC [San Francisco]; KGB [San Diego]; KHJ, KRTH [LA]; WLS [Chicago]; WRKO [Boston]; KOY, KTAR, KFYI, KGLQ [Phoenix]) another Pioneer of Truth, has opened the portal to a refreshing new online presence, Spirit And Word. It is a gathering place for souls who are searching beyond the perimeters set by organized religious practices for something more recognizably true, something less limited, something guilt-free, something beyond the old concepts of good and evil, as is the core of this post.

I write under the tab, "Beyond Religion."

It is said the one cause of evil in our world is human consciousness, unexamined. This happens when we are not present in each moment's awareness, instead "lost in thought."

No blame. We're wired that way, to compare and differentiate, for survival. Yet, we know there's more. Accepting only concepts of life, rather than living it, is such a small experience. It is like having a delicious meal set before you, then thinking about but never actually tasting it.

What a waste of taste buds.

We can change our "fate," break free and feel life's full explosive force if we choose. The way has been shown again and again. This mental structure is not the least bit permanent, while its witness is.

Look around at people; notice how many are lost.  You can see it in the eyes.

When we know this fact about ourselves - that we fall into unconscious repetitive opinion and belief patterns, listen to an inner narrative and take the words as our reality, that we follow patterns of emotional reaction and off-purpose thought over and over and, get caught up in mental movies, sleepwalk through most of the day - this knowledge is the first step.

Only the power of awareness will work in cleaning up this mess and clearing the path to percieving, and thus freeing, Real You.

Fortunately, it's already started. It always starts with Knowing.

Pure Self - You - are much deeper than the notions of curved space, retreating galaxies or apparent surfaces sensed by vision. Add to this, you are waking up. Beneath the mind-chatter of everyday existence, something akin to an earthquake has began the first movement in a powerful, consequential sequence, each motion designed to take you to a clearer perception of who you are and what you're doing here..

For example, just KNOWING you are following patterns informs the rest of you, deeper within, that those same patterns may also NOT be followed.

There is incredibly efficient action in the process of knowing, uninterrupted by thought. Knowing the nature of your situation immediately reveals that there is an awareness here inside that KNOWS you recognize it. While simple and pure, this initial certainty of knowing, before even understanding, is extremely powerful.

But, too many thoughts, and emotional reactions to those thoughts, go unchecked, accepted and digested as true. As they are not actual or real, the result is misunderstanding, desperation, failure and chaos.

Many, when hearing the term "intelligence," can accept its definition as "being clever." THIS is a classic instance of unexamined thought. Being clever has nothing to do at all with being intelligent.

Intelligence is able to perceive the larger whole, the sum of all parts, the connectedness. Cleverness is small, follows its own little impulses.

Negativity in any thought or plan is not intelligent. It stems from the ego, and while it may be clever, intelligence is nowhere there.

Intelligence is intuitive. Clever thinking is selfish.

Clever superficial ingenuity is driven by self-interest, and it is very short-sighted. Many politicians, experts and authorities are clever, but very few are intelligent. Whatever is gained through cleverness is temporal, over quickly and always turns out to be working against true self. One does not obtain anything through intelligence as much as truly"see" what is, and understand.

Cleverness separates into parts; intelligence unites.

This tendency toward cleverness arises from our mistaken identity with flesh and bones plus mind fabricatin rather that awareness-only of same, and dissolves immediately when you allow pure perception. When you KNOW these inclinations are happening to you. your light is introduced and what was previously darkened can clearly be seen.

The mere act of knowing these previously unexamined urges of mind and body are there, at once validates your Real Presence and is the beginning of the end of their alleged grip on you.

This process of knowing dissipates false self and clears the way to realize your Real Self, or Presence. There is nothing so powerful as your awareness of your Presence.
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