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Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA
Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where “the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.”
Ron Finley tells his story in an engaging TedTalk presentation. Watch for when he talks about the impact of gardening on the kids and about turning the kids away from gangs into becoming “ecolutionaries” and “gangster gardeners.”
Ron Finley grows a nourishing food culture in South Central L.A.’s food desert by planting the seeds and tools for healthy eating. Full bio »
Filmed Feb 2013 • Posted Mar 2013 • TED2013
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February 20, 2013, 9:00 am 125 Comments
Is there a science to parenting?
For all the current discussion in the United States about gun violence and mental illness, there has been little attention paid to root causes. Any effort aiming to reduce gun violence — or child abuse, intimate partner violence, suicide or sexual abuse — must include a serious discussion about how society can improve the quality of parenting.
Read more here:
The Benefits of Positive Parenting
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Holey Brains
March 4, 2013
What will you do today that will matter tomorrow?
-Ralph Marston
“Children who have had almost non-stop stress — from abandonment, threat, violence, neglect, or abuse — have huge holes in their higher brain structures,” observes Pennie Brownlee in Dance with Me in the Heart. [not available at the moment] “They don’t have the hardware to run the software of peace and partnership. Instead, they have highly developed defensive brains for fight and flight. Highly developed defense-department-brains don’t grow healthy partnerships; they lead to baby-battlers, violence, and war. Scans of violent adults reveal the holes are still there — they don’t repair themselves. It is the first three years that the growth is laid down, or not….
“Babies who have been peacefully nurtured throughout their growing are very different. Their brains have huge prefrontal cortices. Researcher Paul MacLean termed that part of the brain the angel lobes because they are associated with the highest human qualities. These children are perfectly set up for their divine birthright; the happiness that comes from loving and being loved…. If your baby could tell you what she would really like from you, she wouldn’t ask you for toys and things. She would tell you that she wanted to feel safe and loved, and now you can see why it is so important for her. Her future rests on it.”
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Stop the Storm 
This is strange. My mind read this in a very different way. I understood RAD, caused the state Paul Maclean defined as angellobes. For that is how i recognized my own state. One of them anyway. It is functioning on a much higher frequency then that of any baby i ever came upon, who was lovingly taken care of. But possibly it explains why i always felt this sense of connection with small babies. That was until a certain age, until the hypnotic inprints of parents, who had long forgotten those states from the beginnings of their lives took precedence.
I have met with native americans, who held that high state, even when adult. And on rare occasions some muslims.
Never though a socalled ‘normal’ white, western human, female or male.
If Maclean’s findings were to be true, i would think, our world would be in a much better state of affairs. As i believe there are more healthy parents in these days, where one chooses conception, then there are unhealthy ones.
Research on psychopaths, stated that in the upperregions of society, politics, managers, they are much more present, then in the lower regions. They are capable of presenting the world with a perfect model of humanity. I guess much like adulterous men can, until they are found out.
To be healthy parented, also inprints one with trust. That is something i observe in our current reality. Most people trusting politicians, governments to honestly take care of them, to be trustworthy. Childlike wonder or lazy naiveness, like people in Europe were when Hitler was coming to power.
To me it seems if there is any hope, it will come through actions of the broken ones. The ones who already lived the inlivable and will not threatened into silence, into lethargy. They are superior in suspecting danger, hidden agenda’s, treason, lies, etc. They have highly developed antenna;s, empathy for what is RIGHT and what is UNTRUE, LIES etc. They know intimately how it feels to be betrayed. They are also not susceptible to loosing themselves to false illusions.
But like i heard some topphysicists say on YouTube yesterday. They know nothing, they can only observe and guess. Concerning the brain, that is even more so. No depression can be really seen and explained, defined by chemical inbalances. Professionals hear the symptoms and constrict them in the limited boxes DSM thought up. Or rather voted into existence, Often to promote the next pharma drug. Even on what is the mind, and whether it is in one’s body, or also outside the physical body, cannot be agreed on by those having studied for years.
Yet i can tell everyone, my mind is not limited to my body. Even dissociated from my body, my mind is still there and fully functional.
I believe the mind is an aspect of the soul – which is not attached to or in our body – but present during this lifetime. Dreams are also about actions of the soul not tied to physical eyes, ears, legs, etc.
The “holey” brain – wondering if this is similar to what can be seen of the black parts of Romanian orphans’ brains – the “holes”