Oh my god...wow.
RIP Brian Jaques, your books got me through highschool....

Awww man. *hugs you in sympathy* I'm not weeping for him, but I knew of the titles and that a lot of Furry folk liked his books. I want to read them, someday myself.

Oh, no

I always thought the first was the best, but that is perhaps because I was the "right age" for it. I remember reading "Redwall" when I was about 11 or 12 or thereabouts... it was captivating.

And I can definitely recommend that first book, at least, and the next two... I stopped reading after that, mostly because of lack of time.

*snuggles an opal and nuzzlelicks*

Yeah, but he had a nice, long life, despite some of the painful bits early on. I haven't seen his writing, but I want to read the books in the series.

*snuggles and purrs*

Aww, I didn't know that. I never read the books either, but I watched the animated series they made on some of the books. It seemed like an interesting. If you can find the episodes somewhere, you should try to give it a watch

I only found out about it this morning in passing because I was reading some news from the BBC. I prefer reading to watching, but I like animation and if it was at all done well, then I'm in!

It was pretty good animation Murrah, but yeah, you can judge for yourself when you get a chance to watch it, though they only made the Redwall saga, Mattimeo, and the story of Martin the warrior. All of them were individual seasons though, so you have plenty of episodes to watch if you like it

Cool.

I watched the animated series. It's pretty good. :)

Sweet! I'll suggest to my mate to look it up. We like to find the whole series and then watch it together.

It's an acquired taste for some, kind of like wine, in a sense. :)

*chuckle*

He'll be missed.

I figure so. RIP, sir.

:< Rest well, good sir. You fought the Good Fight, and now it is time for your eternal, peaceful rest.

*cries* one of my favorite series and authors

I'd known of him for a while, but hadn't read his books, yet. *huggles*

Oh my... I wasn't really a fan, but I do feel bad for those who were...

It's often a bit of a surprise to find out that a favourite artist/author/musician, etc has passed on. I'd like to read his stories, though- haven't had a chance, yet.

I suggest Marlfox

I've heard that title and the first books in the series were the best and didn't hit you over the head with the "vermin races are evil" bit as much.

it didnt, the foxes in marlfox wernt so much the typical theving foxes, they actually had more depth in them

Cool.

Oh no...

Yeah- he was in his 70's, though, o it's not like he went early. A nice long life on him, full of dreams and good stories.

First Micheal Crichton, now him?

Crichton died in 2008, I believe- not exactly current news... Crichton was a good author, but he believed some bizarre and irrational shit, which was really strange for a guy who wrote medical and science-based fiction. *headscratch*

What kind of weird stuff did he believe in?

An example of some of it from the Wiki page: At Harvard he developed the belief that all diseases, including heart attacks, are direct effects of a patient's state of mind. He later wrote: "We cause our diseases. We are directly responsible for any illness that happens to us." Eventually he came to believe in auras, spoon bending, and clairvoyance." He mentions it in his autobiography, "Travels".

Interesting. I know he was once a doctor who abandoned the trade because he was disgusted with it because they "Weren't trying to make people better, they were only trying to treat the symptoms to make them come back and keep paying for treatment." That belief, I completely understand. (Feels kind of the same way)

I can actually get along with that idea. For some things, I've just given up on the "traditional" docs, which might be much of his reason for doing so, too. He wanted to treat the illness or prevent it- traditional medicine only seems to care about making sure you come to rely on them for treatment and keep coming back so the doc will have a steady (and increasing) paycheque.

I'm personally a proponent of the holistic method in that much disease is often related to what we do in our lives, and, as such, can be prevented- similar to what Crichton later came to believe, but not as loosely defined as "it's all your fault". I'm not gonna blame someone for getting some random germ infection, after all, but I could suggest that they wash their hands more often, eat better, exercise more and find the things in life that they enjoy in order to boost their immune-response (it's been proven that depression can depress- pardon the pun- your immune-system response, but having a happier outlook on life can actually improve it's reaction to disease threats), then give them some echinacea and goldenseal to help things along in the chemical department. A big factor in how our bodies respond to disease is how we treat that body- if we don't get the right nutrients, enough restful sleep and learn better ways to deal with stress, we tend to break down too easily.

I'm no doctor, but things like that should be common sense: you don't kick a delicately-balanced piece of equipment around, let dirt and dust get into the works or drop it from a height and expect it to work, so why do we treat our bodies that way? We do that to ourselves on a day-to-day basis, and then we wonder why we're getting sick or having heart-attacks! Maybe that's what Crichton meant when he expressed the opinion that we cause all of our disease. I don't think it's that extreme, but we are a factor in how we respond to illness. We can also reduce the likelihood of getting sick if we just treated our bodies right. Proactive and preventive- makes sense to me.

For example, there are two things that were chronic issues with me until recently: lung-infections/asthma and arthritis. These things made me miserable for years. They got in the way of my going out and having fun or even just to work, because I was sick so often or just in pain to the point where it was getting difficult to walk without a cane. I was starting to look on my cane as my friend and worry that a wheelchair would soon replace it. Losing my voice four or five times a year, along with coughing up clotted gunk, and going to the hospitable for increasing asthma-attacks that seemed to be getting worse every year... I know there are folks with worse problems, but this was severely interfering in what life I had, and it was beginning to scare me. I shouldn't be this decrepit in my thirties (I'm in my forties, now)!

I have arthritis in almost all of my joints- many days, I had to use a cane, and it looked like things were getting worse as time went on. I used to be in a lot of pain- and it was getting to be pretty much all the time- where I had to take pain-killers just to hobble through a day. I wasn't taking any of the high-end pain-killers, just off-the-shelf stuff- didn't want to become addicted to things like percocet or morphine- but it was getting to the point where I was running serious health-risks because of the sheer number of them I was taking (that, and I was actually already taking a narcotic for the pain: codeine. It was a very small dose- 8mg- mixed with 250 mg Ibuprofen and 250 mg Acetominophen- it worked well, it meant I was taking fewer pills, too, but, still... Too much drug, man).

I didn't want to "trade up" to the stronger drugs, so I went looking for another solution.  kanis told me about the supplements his mother took for her joints, something called glucosamine and chondritin. She'd been taking it for some time, and it apparently has helped her a lot with her problem, to the point where she didn't have to take pain-killers every day like I was. It's not a drug, but an amino-acid supplement our bodies actually need as part of the building-blocks for the "lubricant" it makes between the joints, but doesn't get very often in a regular diet. I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try, along with the exercise I knew I needed anyway (I'm too heavy).

I've been taking the stuff for two years, now, and it allows me to go most days without having to dose myself stupid with pain-killers. I still get the odd ache in my knees and back, but it's something I can live with and often don't even need to take drugs for anyway. I've since told my own mother about glucosamine and suggested she try it for her joints, as she's been living with arthritis for years. She's reported that she's been taking it regularly and that it has helped her a lot. She's calling it a blessing (she's religious) that she can get around again- she's in her sixties.

As for the lung-infections and asthma- part of my solution to taking ventolin and steroids is more vitamin C and zinc to strengthen the immune system, get more sun and move to a climate where I didn't have to deal with extreme cold (one of my triggers, along with mold and dust-mites). My incidence of catching a cold that turns into bronchitis has dropped by more than half. I used to dread getting even a sniffle, because it would settle into my lungs, have a happy party with the mucus down there and- boom- bacteria-factory, and I was laid out for the next couple of months, coughing up crap and running a fever. It got so bad that I came close to being hospitalized for pneumonia more than once.

Now, instead of being sick four or five times a year, I might get a sniffle or two, and maybe one serious infection, like the one I had last year after my Disney trip (I was already feeling the effects of illness a day or so before that trip, so it wasn't the result of it- sucks being sick on yer birthday, man), and even that one, while it got pretty bad, didn't lay me out for more than a month. Now, I feel the first ticklings of a cold, and I up the vitamin C, take echinacea and goldenseal for a few days and gargle with salt-water to help disinfect my throat. Sniffle goes away, yay. I make what I call "super-tea" that I pump up with vitamin C and the echinacea mix to help me get through the times of feeling under the weather.

The holistic method: find the weakness (my lungs) and build them up (remove triggers, clean space of molds or dust-mites and take supplements along with a better diet) and reap the benefits. No drugs, no surgeries, no crazy-expensive doctor bills.

Now, I'd go to a doctor if I was seriously injured or if I actually needed surgery- I don't doubt their competence, I just doubt their motives (help the patient or over-charge them for the help? It's a question of ethics, and there are docs out there who hate the way the system of fees works, too, but they're rare). I'm not some crystal-waving idiot who thinks bubble-gum, bailing-wire and prayer will get me through cancer, but for most things we go to a doctor for (and waste their time with, honestly), like colds, infected cuts and similarly minor things, we can take care of ourselves with a bit of simple thinking through the problem and looking for solutions.

Problem-solving, good for what ails ya.

Exactly! (Holy shit! That's gotta be the longest message I've ever gotten here!)

What? Folks don't TALK to ya? *hugs* Long replies are pretty standard for me, actually. I'm trying to cut down on the walls o' text, though. Looks like I failed, there. LOL

LOL. Yep.

Oh, and he was a bit of a Climate Change denier- kinda seems stupid, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, but hey, it's not like he ever had to worry about failing crops, natural disasters and what not- he had the money to get through all of that.

There's lots of people like that out there.

And they're often the biggest part of any "denial" problem: "it's only a problem for everyone else, not me!"

aka, NIMBY

Yup.

"No, its fine. Just don't do it here."

Actually, NIMBY is an acronym for "Not In My Back Yard" LOL But, yes- "it's fine, but not here." Mostly.

Yep. I knew that already. Its usually reserved as a term for those who are apathetic or antipathetic.

I've definitely heard of his famous books, this is a real shame.

Yeah- his stuff sounds interesting, even though it was written for younger readers.