Monday, June 16, 2014

Eye on Celebrities - Vampira, Maila Nurmi, a Child of Ashtabula, and Rayelan Allen, A Retiree of Ashtabula



In pursuit of interesting individuals who lived in Ashtabula we found the list below, available on the Wikipedia. After a diligent search we had to conclude Ashtabula tends to produce people about whom there is little gossip and scandal, a condition now relieved in some part by the relocation of our previously featured celebrity, Rayelan Allen, AKA Darlene Rae Smith, Raye Smith, etc.

But then we chanced upon two names with some history in the Entertainment Industry, including Maila Nurmi, known to posterity as Vampira.

This interesting development came into her life while she was studying acting in New York City. During this time she reportedly played a vampire in Mike Todd's NYC show,  "Spook Scandals."But more vampiric fame was yet to come.  

This persona, developed by Maila, lasted for 50 years as she was nominated for an Emmy for her role as a TV program hostess for KABC (Channel 7) in Los Angeles.

But she was raised in Ashtabula, having immigrated with her family to the town from her native Finland in 1924 when she was two.

After her training in New York she and a group of friends headed West to Hollywood where she found work as a pinup model and high-kicking showgirl at Florentine Gardens and Earl Carroll's Theatre (now Nickelodeon Studios - on Sunset Blvd). 

In 1953 Nurmi chose a tight-fitting black dress for a masquerade ball. The dress is said to have been inspired by Charles Addams' New Yorker magazine drawings.

She won first prize. Soon, her time in the lime light began as a KABC producer, who was looking for a late-night hostess who could entertain watchers with brief skits while introducing old horror films, newly syndicated for television, was being planned.

The Vampira Show made its show business debut on television on April 30, 1954.

Nurmi was an instant hit. Her persona as a funny, pun-loving deathly sexpot was burnished by her 38-17-36 figure. The name, “Vampira,” was suggested by her first husband, screenwriter Dean Riesner.

This appears to be a startling coincidence since Vampira made a career of pretending to be a vampire, this founded on the choice of a Halloween costume, and that of Rayelan Allen, AKA Darlene Rae Smith, Raye Smith, etc.

Vampira left Ashtabula to become famous, albeit in a marginalizing role in television, and Rayelan, who has retired to Ashtabula from a career as a doyen of Conspiracy on the Internet.  Rayelan's fame hinged on the reason for which Rumor Mill News was founded, this being to defend the good name of her third husband, Gunther Russbacher.  Claiming to be the number 3 man in the CIA Russbacher's career is memorialized on Rumor Mill News (RMN).  The site is aptly named. Where does rumor meet reality is the questions many ask.  

Russbacher, who reportedly died around 1998, lived a life which appears to be made up of   many flights of fancy. These are memorialized in an article titled, A Pro Con, which appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 17, 1992, written by Michael Tackett.

The latter part of Maila's life was fraught with frustrations as the persona she had made famous was adopted by Elvira, another winsome late night personality associated with the world of vampires.   

Consider getting in touch with Rayelan now as she is moving out of the city of Ashtabula proper and, belabored by her happy habit of hoarding, has found herself stuck with the impossibility of finishing her packing even with a host of helpers.  (It is reported the first 250 boxes failed to make more than a dent in the whole of her holdings.) 

But the enterprise is being celebrated as a God Send by local owners of storage units.   

But, please, do not bring house warming gifts that are not consumable on the spot, else wise they will have to be packed.



Friday, June 13, 2014

Chevron Hides Evidence That Proves Guilt in Ecuador Rainforest Contamination Case

From:  EcoWatch 



In the wake of a controversial U.S. court ruling that a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron is fraudulent, the oil giant has been touting loudly its innocence of any environmental crimes in the South American country.
chevron-toxico
Chevron’s lawyers even successfully pressured some CBS News corporate suits to yank a damning 60 Minutes piece from the network’s website about the deliberate contamination of the Ecuador rainforest from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron later bought.
(See the dead link here. You can see the segment on my company’s web site. So sue me, CBS.)
Instead of succumbing to Chevron’s pressure tactics, CBS’ lawyers should grow a backbone and demand to see contamination “playbook” documents that Chevron has been forced to produce in an international arbitration proceeding.
They are explosive and prove 60 Minutes got it right, and the U.S. judge got it wrong.   MORE

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Signs Nation’s First Renewable Energy Freeze

From:  EcoWatch 

by Brandon Baker 

It took two weeks, but now it’s official—Ohio is the nation’s first state to roll back renewable energy standards.
After the state House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 310 in May, Gov. John Kasich signature was all that was missing to ensure Ohio’s clean-energy fall from grace. The standards—first passed in 2008 and reauthorized two years ago—previously required the state’s utilities to sell more solar and wind energy each year and charged them with finding efficiency solutions for their customers. Kasich’s signing means the standards are put on hold until 2017, when a committee formed by the bill’s passage could agree to permanently freeze them.
Kasich signed the bill Friday without any comment to the media, The Plain Dealer reported.
John Kasich signed a bill on Friday that freezes renewable energy for at least two years. Video screenshot: JohnKasich2010/YouTube
John Kasich signed a bill on Friday that freezes renewable energy for at least two years. Video screenshot: JohnKasich2010/YouTube
“Dirtier air. Higher electric bills. Lost jobs and investment. These are the new ‘dividends’ in store for Ohio from this major divestiture in clean energy,” said Trish Demeter, managing director of Energy and Clean Air Programs for the Ohio Environmental Council (OEC).   MORE

Thursday, June 12, 2014

No. 101 – June 12, 2014 – How ideas impact us – Meet the Homunculus


by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

It started with philosophers sitting around observing the world around them and extrapolating on how things worked, which they could not actually see. Anything related to sex was naturally of extreme interest, the profession of philosopher being entirely male.

Theophrastus, Hippocrates, Aristotle and Aeschylus, weighed in with theories of how babies came about. Then one of them, likely, in 458 BC, who must have had very good eyesight, looked closely at some sperm, which he reportedly held in his hand. He deduced that sperm were tiny human beings, homunculi, which would be planted in the womb of the woman. He then proposed the interesting theory that the male was the only real parent of the child, the female carrying out the role of "nurse for the young life sown within her".


In the 1700s this interesting theory received more attention and back up through the work of Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). Anton discovered what he called "animalcules" in the sperm of humans and other animals. You can imagine these fellows peering intently into the lens of their microscope.


These scientists started a school of thought known as the "spermists" repeating the original contention of Aeschylus that the only contributions of the female were to provide the womb.


The Theory of the Homunculus was noted by legal sages who were writing law and became the justification for giving fathers the entire legal control of the children born to his wife. 
 
Naturally, this ignored the room and board, so to speak, the woman had provided for nine plus months and the related services of nourishing and caring for the child after the often painful and dangerous process of birth was completed. 
 
If you calculate the entire biological capitalization needed to produce a baby, conception to birth, ownership, or liability, would be viewed very differently, of course. 
 
Sperm generally have a negative value since men must pay to give them away. Human eggs cost around $8,000, ready to be fertilized and implanted. Payment for gestation services runs up to $100,000. Therefore, the capitalization of the baby making, calculated monetarily, is around: Male 1 Share, Female 99,000 Shares. 
 
This example of using theory to make law without thoroughly thinking through the ramifications and objectively assessing each contribution to the entire process is a useful exercise today. 
 
It gives us a moment to pause and consider many other issues which need rethinking.




No. 100 - May 5, 2014 - Discover Your Body's Largest Organ


by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 
 

Not long ago your skin was believed to be your body's largest organ. Advances in medical science have changed this.

In his book, “The Genie in Your Genes,” Dawson Church reveals the recent understanding of how a previously overlooked organ functions, linking this to the potential for each of us to take direct control of our health and happiness through prayer.

Any system with complex functions must have the means to coordinate their action. We are no different.

In your body this takes place through the much overlooked system of connective tissue encasing your organs through a complex including tendons and ligaments. Running through every part this matrix, made of collagen fibers, built from molecules arranged in highly regular arrays, are the lines through which energy and information pass.

The system functions as a liquid crystal semi-conductor.

These lines of fibers are the system on which Eastern medicine has been based for thousands of years, called meridians. Chinese healers discovered points along the meridians could be stimulated to achieve the balance of energies, restoring health. These practices were memorialized in the reign of the Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti, who reigned from 2697 to 2597 BC and is viewed as the initiator of Chinese civilization.

This knowledge also existed in Europe thousands of years earlier, but was lost.

Tattoos found on the body of the Ice Man, dated from 3300 BC, discovered in the summer of 1991 in the Alps, correspond closely with the same meridian lines used by the Chinese.

In Western medicine pacemakers are an example of the return to the use of energy for health and healing. The use of energy in medicine is expanding rapidly.

Western scientists had to be able to see the microscopic structure of this system to accept how it functions alongside the chemical system they already understood. Now, this is happening.

The communication/energy system in your body works with your body's chemical system, synchronizing the whole. It also reaches into the cell nucleus, and into the DNA, turning your DNA on, and off. No part is separate from this internal matrix - and these communications take place much faster than can be accounted for by traditional physics.

Scientific experiments confirm prayers from the faithful can heal - even when the afflicted don't know someone is praying for them. The power is in our hands. With faith, nothing is impossible.