About Myra
I'm retired in Costa Rica, having lived in Philly, State College, Salem Mass,
and Kawagoe Japan. You might call me a career gypsy, but my last and best job was teaching English to some of the best and brightest kids in Philly.
I'm new to blogging and websites, and will probably make all the mistakes there are, but now I'm sharing my writing.
I moved to Costa Rica in June of 2009 with my husband Jack, my dog Buddha, and Jack's two cats, Hobbes and Noir.
When it comes to being born, location is everything— especially for women. So I’m grateful that I wasn’t born in a part of the world where women are routinely denied rights by some fanatical element or another, or a place … Continue reading →
Posted in Current events, Education, Life, Politics, Rural Living
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Tagged Afghanistan, birth control, Congress, control over sexual practices, home-school, indoctrination, opposition, personal decisions, political discourse, reproductive rights, Republican-controlled Virginia, Rick Santorum, right-wing politicians, sex-as-sin, state-sanctioned rape, trans-vaginal ultrasound, United States, women's rights
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When I lived in the six hundred block of Federal Street, in Philly, I needed air conditioning— not because of the heat, but because of the noise. At night, the racket from car horns, radios, and drunk pedestrians often robbed … Continue reading →
Posted in Costa Rica, Health, Life, Life abroad, Philadelphia, Rural Living
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Tagged aural bombardment, Cerbataba, Costa Rica, Department of Air Management, environmental stressors, Federal Street, momocross, negative effects, noise pollution, people-friendly controls on noise., Philadelphia, silence
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I can’t remember what we had to pick up the first time we drove the two hours to the postal customs office, in Zapote. What I do remember is trying to find the agency. We’d learned the address: across from … Continue reading →
It’s not what you think, though I do like my fermented grape juice. I watched the documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, about a thirty year-old Australian guy who turned to a diet of fruit and vegetable juices exclusively. The … Continue reading →
Posted in Food, Health, Life, Shopping
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Tagged autoimmune diseases, dietary guidelines, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, fruit, health, high fat, high sugar diet, juicer, morbid obesity, nutrition, placebo effect, vegetables
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In a conversation with someone new, I’m often aware of an invisible barrier that arises between the speaker and me when I hear the word conspiracy. A friend from the Internet Writing Workshop captures my feelings when he says, “Conspiracy … Continue reading →
Posted in Current events, Life, Politics, Uncategorized
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Tagged ALEC, assassination debunkers, Center for Media and Democracy, Conspiracy, conspiracy theories, espionage and intelligence agencies, financial world domination, indefinite detention of US citizens, Internet Writing Workshop, Koch brothers, PR Watch, surveillance, terrorists, the Nation, The Supreme Court, top ten conspiracy theories, UFO
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My friends don’t understand when I confide that I have to write a blog. It’s not like you’re getting paid, they say, and they’re right, but this blog is my baby. Wikipedia, estimates there were one hundred fifty-six million personal … Continue reading →
Posted in Blogs and blogging, Websites, Writing
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Tagged attracting readers, Blogs, Bluehost, free blog directories, hits, number of subscribers, statistics, unique visitors, web analytics
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Lately, I’ve noticed that some prominent conservative politicians are scapegoating entitlements. They make the word sound repugnant, malignant, a tumor to be excised. What? Language is always in a state of flux, with additions and changes to existing words. As … Continue reading →
Posted in Current events, Politics
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Tagged Blacks, collective bargaining, conservative politicians, dictionaries, Entitlement, language, miscreants, misuse of language, pejorative usage, peruse, powerful, privileges, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, social security, unemployment insurance, welfare
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My love affair with Mount Fuji began one crisp November morning in 1995 as I pedaled to work from my home in the Tokyo suburb of Fujiki-Kinome. When I reached the middle of a rickety old bridge I’d been crossing … Continue reading →
Posted in Life, Life abroad, Travel
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Tagged Fujiki-Kinome, Fujimino, Kawagoe River, Mt Fuji, Otsukare sama deshita, oxygen deprevation, Sartre, Shinjuku, Temple University, Tokyo
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A year ago, the Supreme Court declared, in Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission, that corporations are people, with first amendment rights. The founding fathers must have turned over in their graves. Fortunately, some of our legislators disagree. Altogether, five … Continue reading →
A few months ago, I landed on the Bacon Brothers’ facebook page and sent a friend request. They have almost five thousand friends, I reasoned. They can’t know them all. Why did I want to be friends with the Bacon … Continue reading →
Posted in Life, Philadelphia
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Tagged Facebook, Footloose, friend requests, JC Dobbs, Julia Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, Kevin Bacon, Philadelphia, Six Degrees of Separation, the Bacon Brothers, The Parkway School
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