Food for Thought - Agony of Indigestion

Recently I suffered a bad case of indigestion. I never knew the symptom of this seemingly common ailment can be that agonizing.

My on-and-off heartburn started not long after I had some dental works. And it did not take long for my body giving out subtle signs that told me there was something wrong somewhere. At first, the churning in the stomach got ignored since it did not last. But as the days went by, the bothering feeling lingered and became unbearable. Making a long story short, I regret that I did not seek medical cares on my upsetting stomach sooner.

By not taking care of the queasy feeling on the onset, this common and preventable discomfort can harm the entire digestive system. It can even elevate blood pressures.

Now I know a simple personal habit like how we chew our foods can exert great influences, both good and bad, over our physical well-being. - Ayee

Rent-to-Own

Finally, one of the country’s largest banks is going to employ a tried marketing strategy on the homes it has foreclosed.

Under certain conditions, the Bank of America will lease the homes it owns back to their original owners. As noted in my previous blog, besides saving a bundle in maintenance on the foreclosed homes*, I think it is possible that the Bank will be able to unload those homes sooner at a better price. We all know a neighborhood full of residents is definitely more attractive than a desert one. And an occupied home is more inviting than a boarded-up one.

In the past when the market was glutted with unsold homes, developers would offer a rent-to-own packages to unload their excess inventory.

Let’s hope other banks will join BOA on this soon. - Ayee

*See "To Rent or Not to Rent," Thought of the Day, AC, July 26, 2011

Low Interest Rates

Bill Gross is right on the money.

Last night on PBS’s Nightly Business Report, the chief investment officer of the world’s largest bond fund said the government’s low interest is punishing the savers. It makes the seniors poorer.

And I think the current policy on interest rates also makes the government poorer. With less income, poorer seniors will definitely spend less and pay lesser income taxes. In addition, it is likely they will be entitled to more income-based government benefits.

It sure does not look like a win-win situation here. - Ayee

“The Joy of Strife ”*

I am trying to see if I can find some common threads between what our parents told us in our impressionable years and the profound thoughts this four-word phrase tried to convey.

In a moment of awakening, the orphan girl, Anne Shirley of Green Gables*, thought of facing new challenges is more fun than just for the winnings. After she decided to give up a scholarship she won, she was in awe with the idea of “the joy of strife.” She told herself that “next to trying and winning, the best thing is to trying and failing.”*

And the epiphany of this sixteen-year-old girl does have some things in common with what our late parents had instilled in us when my siblings and I were still in the school system studying. It seems at that time our young lives were always tethered to exams. There were tests for every kind of schools from neighborhood kindergartens to top-notched universities. And I remember the hardest were the ones for colleges of our choice. Of course, there were many times we failed miserably in some of them. Thankfully, we must have the most lenient parents as far as exam scores were concerned. They never admonished us for failed grades. Instead, they would arrange for extra tutoring for us so we could take the flunked tests again.

However, before they sent us off to new tutors, they and other elderly members of the family would always remind us of what a Chinese war-strategist of Three Kingdoms era, Zhu Ge-liang*, told his soldiers after they were defeated by their enemies. The wise thinker said to them more defeats mean more battles ahead.

In spite of the facts these moving thoughts were originated many years apart, they both bear the same timeless truth that one can always learn something while trying. - Ayee

*Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 1994 edition
*Three Kingdoms from years 220 to 265

Food for Thought - Simple Foods

It seems to me the idea of eating simple and unrefined foods are not new to us. The prolific Amereican writer, John Steinbeck, had already told us in his 1935 book Tortilla Flat that simple foods are good for us:

Among the many residents in a seaside community, Tortilla Flat, there was a single mom with eight children. In good years when bean crops were aplenty, Senoria Teresina fed her growing family with tortillas and the leftover beans that she and her mother salvaged from the field. But when the time was bad, leftover pulses were in short supply. To feed her hungry kids, the hard-pressed mom accepted charities from her equally destitute neighbors. But the fine and delicate foods such as cured meat, fish, cheeses, sugars, white flour, and even the fresh greens, the kind hearted residents of the neighborhood flop house pilfered from the local grocers never did any good to her children. These refined foods made them sick. However, once the children were put back on their old diet of beans and tortilla breads, all of their ailments disappeared. - Ayee