I asked a specialist on the use of Banana's for Constipation. He said that Banana's consumed with other foods, does help the body restore regular bowel movements, but too many banana's( because they are high in fiber) can do the opposite.If you read the caption that is exactly what it says. Diana55

Hi Marian, I read the article too, very interesting. You might try writing to Don at their Winterberry Iris Garden. Their email and address are in the back of the AIS bulletin. I had planned on asking Ginny next month at the convention myself:) Let us know what you find out. The problem might be as the footnote on the article lists it as a weed in Canada and probably elsewhere to. Yvette

beginner's eye, "...your assuming the person apologizes and accepts your apology. what if they don't. is that the fault of the parent as well..." I'm going to take....fault of the parent out of this equation and provide another example here. Perhaps a non-apology was given. I have an older sister, who I'm estranged from. She was given to periodic calls out of the blue. Usually, she would rage at me, criticize, judge, etc. Sadly, she just could never connect to my feelings. The point is that it was all about her and her feelings. I got used to her negative judgments and criticisms. She was very aggressive, although I'm convinced that she never saw herself as an aggressive person. She always framed me as the problem. Once, at the urging of some therapy group she decided to make another call. By this time I equated all phone calls and every interaction with her as emotionally painful. As charastic of her, she demanded to know why I avoided her. My sister could never, never see how hurtful her behavior was. EVER! Then she said to me, "...If I apologize, will it make things better?" This took me by surprise and there was a long history of her emotional outbursts, anger and denial. I responded saying I guess so. Then she got mad. Then immediately after she made another very telling comment, she said,"I DON'T GET ANY OF THIS." I was in therapy at the time and discussed her non-apology with my therapist and why I felt it was insincere--it was a very telling comment to me. She was apologizing for behavior that she didn't UNDERSTAND, because as she said, "She didn't get any of this." Neither could the rest of my family and the rage, anger and blame continued from them. My response was to distance myself even further. The concept here is that if someone truly doesn't understand how hurtful and destructive their behavior is (and will not own it and don't understand it), then I'm certain that the behavior will continue and there will be repetition. This may not be the best example, but think of a wife-beater who abuses his wife, then profusely apologizes with flowers, gifts and she reconciles. Then he beats her again, even more cruely than the first time. Then her well-meaning friends or relatives say, "she allowed herself to be manipulated, abused," or they may encourage her to "forgive and forget". Plenty of people MINIMIZE emotional abuse and the damage it creates, because unlike physical abuse you can't see it, therefore if you can't see it, it must not exist. I can assure you my estrangement from my sister is NOT TO PUNISH her. It is 100% about PROTECTING MYSELF and PROTECTING my emotions. It is not because I do not want "...resolution/reconciliation/closure/healing". Of course, I want that. I also want change and I want her destructive behaviors to STOP. I want her to demonstrate AWARENESS and I want to be convinced that she UNDERSTANDS why she is apologizing. I'm not interested in prolonging the conflict. I'M NOT INTERESTED IN PROLONGING EMOTIONAL ABUSE with someone who DOESN'T UNDERSTAND my feelings. I am also not looking for perfection of character. Responsibility and awareness, YES. That is what I am looking for. My intest is in preserving some sense of myself and protecting myself. I posted on another thread about the Art of Apologizing.

This was in today's Crain's Chicago Business. I'm hoping it works to link to the video: You might have to login to read the article, but here's a link. If you can't see the article online, here are some points I found interesting: - A couple wished to built an environmentally friendly home on a budget, and had a modular home built out of state and shipped to Oak Park, IL (which as a side note has a large number of FLW homes) - The cost savings of going modularwere marginal, in part due to the need to ship the pieces 125 miles - Building tight and energy-efficient was easier to control in a factory setting than on a home site - One challenge is on inspections, and I found this interesting (Sommers, quoted below, is from a firm that has done 2 modular homes in Chicago but is not the firm that did the home featured in the article): "One key obstacle, Sommers said, is that municipalities want to inspect all construction along the way, which, while justifiable for health and safety reasons, makes building a house 125 miles from the village inspector's office a sore spot. He switched to designing for prefabrication of panels, or individual walls, instead of enclosed boxes, so that all inspections can be done on the home's site." - For the home in the article, 3rd party inspectors did the inspections while the modules were being built, and the village's inspectors took over once the home was assembled on the lot.