Days pass quickly by and I don't have time to come to the computer; I miss reading my blogging friends' posts. My husband's dementia/Alzheimer is still progressing, and he needs constant attention. Our 50th wedding anniversary is coming up on June 17, 2017. I don't believe he knows he is married anymore, so am not sure what we should do? Take him to a nice restaurant, maybe, to mark the occasion? He watches some TV but he does not understand much. Actually he likes the commercials better - they are loud, colorful and even though we see the same ones all the time, they are always new to him. I have researched some of them, the most irritating ones. For example, the Ancestry DNA TV ads, like these two below (picture courtesy ispot.tv.)
The woman on top, above, Livie, says in the commercial that she travels a lot and people ask her what her nationality is. She answers "Hispanic." Really? I have never heard of a Hispanic nationality because your nationality is the country where you were born and reside in, where you have a passport. There is no country called "Hispanic" and nationality has nothing to do with your ethnic background or race. Silly commercial. The other lady, an actress named Kim Trujillo, says that her Ancestry DNA test showed that she was 26% Native American, and she never knew it. What? How can that be, she means 25% maybe. To be 25% Native American one of her parents had to be 1/2 and one set of grandparents full blooded Native Americans - and she had never heard of her grandparents? Several years ago I sent for an Ancestry DNA test as I had a 60% off coupon. The results told me that I was 1/2 Western European (no European country specified) and 1/2 from the Caucasus Mountains (the dividing line between Europe and Asia.) That's all the test said. Since my mother and her family were French and my father's family Armenian I already knew this - nothing new there. This makes my daughters 25% French, 25% Armenian and they know it. Below is a map of the Caucasus Mountains and pictures of Paris I took, close to where I grew up.
Other annoying TV ads are those from the insurance company Liberty Mutual. At first I was quite offended that they would use the Statue of Liberty for commercials - it is a national symbol and should not be cheapened like this. But then I also found that their ads are false. I have been to New York City many times and have taken the Statue of Liberty's photos. The view shown on the commercial is not possible, it is too close and facing the dock. There is no direct view like the one in their picture - top left of collage below, unless you are in the middle of the New York Harbor or on a ferry. From Battery Park the view of the Statue of Liberty is of the left side (as I show below in my pictures taken from several trips,) from Governors Island it is also a side view and from Liberty Park in NJ a view of the rear. A misleading ad - and so is the message. The ad advertizes "
new car replacement" but to obtain it, one has to pay extra on a "rider" as it is not covered in their standard policy, and in tiny prints they also mention that one has to meet the "
terms and conditions of Liberty Mutual's underwriting guidelines." Checking independent value assessment services on the Net, it seems that the cost of this Liberty Mutual rider is more expensive than those from GEICO or Allstate insurances.
Then there are the temporary Republican attack ads on Georgia 6th District in suburban Atlanta (we are in the 11th district and can't vote in this election.) The Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican Super PAC aligned with Speaker Paul Ryan, has been spending a $6.5 million campaign against Georgia Democratic House candidate Jon Ossoff. The TV ads are constant. They are super negative, bigoted, Islamophobic, racist and divisive - they show Jon Ossoff's face in front of known terrorists (which I won't copy.) Even though this is a Georgia election the Republican ads show pictures of San Francisco with people wearing Jon Ossoff tee-shirts, and a guy disguised as a hippie with braids at Fisherman's Wharf, a hipster with an ugly floppy hat in the Russian Hills, and more. The ads keep repeating "Jon Ossoff is not
one of us." They did go too far by placing a photo of Jon Ossoff on a SF Powell-Hyde Street cable car. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency sent a "cease-and-desist" request to the PAC, saying this is unauthorized and a misrepresentation. The PAC then moved the picture to the Golden Gate Bridge! Could be the PAC knows their GA Republican constituency, thinking that they are ignorant (that they must believe there are still genuine hippies in San Francisco? - no, they left in 1967 when the wave of hippie wannabe arrived!) bigoted, afraid and uninformed - maybe they are right. Many Republicans are more interested in "party" than what is best for the "country." The runoff is June 20, 2017. These estremist ads smearing the Democratic candidate will then stop, thankfully. (Photos courtesy Atlanta Journal Constitution.)
I would enjoy talking about all this with my husband as we used to, but because of his illness he cannot - he would not understand what I am talking about (he still does not understand who Donald Trump is.) So, I thought about talking with y'all!
Just one last terrible ad to mention. This one really upsets me because it is so deceitful. Since the onset of my husband's dementia/Alzheimer I have been taking him to the best doctors in Georgia. He is a patient of the Emory's Brain Health Center in Atlanta. His doctor is the director, Allan Levey, MD, PhD., who is also the head of the Emory Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (with 400 researchers and clinicians,) one of the top centers in the nation supported by the National Institute of Health. After watching TV ads for the supplement "Prevagen" I asked them whether I should give it to my husband. The answer was a resounding "no" because it was worthless. Furthermore I was told that not a single doctor in the center recommended this supplement but told patients to avoid it. So I researched it. In 2012 the FDA investigated the company and found the supplement has serious side effects, including seizures and strokes and had no scientific backing. They sent the company a warning, telling them that their claims for Prevagen were illegal; their clinical trials were also illegal because they lacked FDA approval and they failed to adequately report adverse reactions. But the drug company kept saying that their supplement, from an element found in jellyfish, improves memory in 90 days and provides other cognitive benefits. Their ads affirm that the product is "clinically shown" to support "clearer thinking." Below is a picture of moon jellyfish, courtesy the Key West Aquarium.
In January 2017, the Federal Trade Commission charged the makers of Prevagen with making false and unsubstantiated claims - read the FTC claim
here. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement "
The marketing for Prevagen is a clear-cut fraud, from the label on the bottle to the ads airing across the country," "
It is particularly unacceptable that this company has targeted vulnerable citizens like seniors in its advertising for a product that costs more than a week's groceries, but provides none of the health benefits that it claims." Dr. Bob Speth, a scientist and professor at Nova Southeastern University school of pharmacy filed a complaint about Prevagen with the Federal Trade Commission in 2016. He calls Prevagen "
one of the most fallacious products I have seen come on the market." He added that these supplement marketers are making millions of dollars by tapping into the deepest fears of seniors and aging boomers. Court documents show that sales of Prevagen were topping $165 million in 2015. All these ads are distressing because so many people believe what they see on television, but fortunately I have a "mute" button on my TV remote... (Pictures of cannonball jellyfish and comb jellyfish.)
Another event that took some of my time was the election of the new President of France. Being dual citizen (France and the USA) I received many emails and mailings on this election. I took a picture of the last mailing I received and show it below. Marine LePen (48,) the Far-right candidate from the Front National Party, faced independent centrist Emmanuel Macron (39) on May 7, 2017. Marine LePen strongly admires Vladimir Putin and visited him in Moscow (and he endorsed her for President of France.) President Donald Trump expressed support for LePen even though her party has a long history of racism, anti-Americanism, Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. As for Marine LePen she approved of and copied Donald Trump's campaign style. But this did not serve her well as the latest polls showed that 71% of French people had an unfavorable view of Putin and most of them disliked Donald Trump even more, 82% of French people! The US elected their extreme right wing candidate, but on May 7th, the French rejected theirs and Emmanuel Macron was elected. It looks to me as though D. Trump scared many countries in Europe as in other countries' elections where the Right wing parties were favored to win, they were also rejected, such as in Austria and the Netherlands. That said, there is no extreme right propaganda machine like US television channel Fox News over there.
Emmanuel Macron was Economy Minister in a previous administration and also an investment banker. He speaks fluent English (he was a Young Leader in the French-American Foundation.) He is married to Brigitte Trogneux, who is 24 years his senior. Some Trump supporters made jokes about the age difference between Macron and his wife - of course they never made jokes about Donald Trump and his wife, even though she is 24 years his junior! Macron is the youngest French head of state since Napoleon. He is very pro-Europe. Macron's new government administration includes 11 men and 11 women, from right and left parties, in an effort to bridge the right-left divide (this would never happen here!) (Bottom picture is of E. Macron and Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, at the G7 Meeting in Italy this week, courtesy Paris-Match magazine.)
Well I better get back to the Bulloch Hall quilt show. In my previous posts I showed the quilts exhibited on the ground floor, look
here, and second floor, look
here. It is not because some quilts were in the attic that they were not as beautiful as the others, because they were. Their bright colors lightened the attic.
We walked closer to each quilt to see their distinct designs.
Some were elaborate.
Others had very interesting shapes and colors.
Some quilts had flowery motifs that were lovely - each one unique.
I was drawn to the blue quilt - it was really exquisite.
We left the attic with our eyes still filled with glorious colors. In my last post I showed a photo of Bulloch Hall that I had done with a special setting on my camera - here it is below again.
This time I manipulated some pictures of Bulloch Hall. I am not sure which one I like the best - which is your favorite? (Click on collage to enlarge.)
Since we are going to move from Georgia to our house in Nashville - eventually ... we may never go back to visit historic antebellum house Bulloch Hall again. In my last photo, I placed an ardent sunset around the mansion to say good-bye, au revoir...
