Sounding Circle - Category: Health & Well Being

19 Oct 2004 @ 19:53
Here Comes the Sun
Too few architects see the light about the importance of daylight.

BY DAVID HOBSTETTER
Tuesday, October 19, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

The slowly improving economy has meant an increase in office construction, but companies don't seem to be getting it. There is a striking lack of understanding by CEOs, boards and corporate real-estate executives that designing buildings with greater access to daylight saves money and improves productivity and the bottom line. The poster children for this illuminating trend--from Manhattan skyscrapers to commercial buildings in suburban California and urban Shanghai--are simply too few and far between.

We pass the vast majority of our time indoors, and more than half of the work force spends much of it parked in front of computer screens. The steady increase in chronic work-related illness, including repetitive stress injuries, asthma and cardiovascular disease, suggests that our artificial environments are hazardous to workplace productivity.

The evidence is mounting. Two recent Dutch studies, for instance, revealed that a significant percentage of sick leave can be linked to complaints about the quality of the workplace. A healthy indoor climate, by contrast, was shown to lead to a 2.5% drop in absenteeism. Though this decrease may seem small, consider that over a building's typical 30-year life span the corresponding increase in productivity would more than match the initial outlay for a building's design and construction.

Perhaps the most powerful findings concern windows. Beginning in the late 1960s, a design trend emerged from the thought that windowless buildings, illuminated solely by fluorescent lights, minimized distractions, prevented eyestrain, and created greater energy efficiency. New research reverses these assumptions, asserting that windows providing daylight and an ample view can dramatically affect mental alertness, productivity and psychological well being. Furthermore, a 2003 study of office-worker performance conducted by the California Energy Commission found exposure to daylight was consistently linked with a higher level of concentration and better short-term memory. A 1999 study by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of 108 retail stores found that those with skylights boasted 40% higher sales than those without them. What's more, designing for "daylighting," as the strategies are known, also offers opportunity to improve energy efficiency.

Techniques to increase access to daylight are gaining acceptance. They can be found in projects ranging from the Jie Fang Daily News office tower under way in Shanghai--winner of the 2004 Building of the Future Award--to two small California buildings: the Brentwood City Hall now in the design phase and the nearly complete San Luis Obispo County Government Center. Other notable projects include London's just-completed egg-shaped Swiss Re Headquarters, with its innovative wedge-shaped light wells extending to the building's exterior; the older Nike European Headquarters in the Netherlands, which utilizes large clerestory roof-top windows and light-sensor switches to turn off interior lights when sunlight makes them unneeded; and a mid-rise office building in Allentown, Pa., the Plaza at PPL Center, whose dramatic eight-story central glass atrium bathes interior offices with light.

Sun-drenched California offers a veritable laboratory for daylighting, and the low-rise buildings in Brentwood and San Luis Obispo take advantage of predominantly sunny days and chilly nights. In both buildings, a raised platform allows cool air to accumulate under the concrete floors at night and filter through the space all day, reducing the need for air conditioning during working hours. In Brentwood's City Hall, offices are massed around a spacious skylit central atrium, ensuring that most workers have access to daylight and views from the building's operable full-length windows. The Council Chamber and the atrium are outfitted with large skylights with diffusers to reduce the glare of direct sunlight. The building's sweeping windows are equipped with light shelves--deep sills that provide shade and act as reflectors, bouncing light upward to illuminate the interior ceilings.

From Manhattan to Shanghai, high-rise views are often considered a mere perk of well-paid executives, but recent research suggests that the view from a window may be even more important than the daylight it admits. The California Energy Commission's 2003 study of workers in the Sacramento Municipal Utility District's call center found that better views were consistently associated with better performance: Workers with good views were found to process calls 7% to 12% faster than colleagues without views. Workers with better views also reported better health conditions and feelings of well being, while their counterparts reported higher fatigue. Another recent study showed that computer programmers with views spent 15% more time on their primary task, while workers without views spent 15% more time talking on the phone or to one another.

Though educators have theorized that views out of windows are unnecessarily distracting to students, the CEC's 2003 study of the Fresno school district found that a varied view out of a window, including vegetation or human activity and objects in the far distance, supported better learning. These findings are consistent with earlier research, such as a 1984 hospital study that concluded that post-operative patients with a view of vegetation took far fewer painkillers and recovered faster than patients looking at concrete walls.

Humans relish contact with the outside world, even if only through a windowpane, and landscapes not surprisingly are better than cityscapes. Researchers theorize that views of nature improve attention spans after extended cognitive activity has drained one's ability to concentrate.
The Jie Fang Daily News building addresses the problem of incorporating nature into an urban setting through atriums and communal gathering spaces alive with trees and plants, which can be viewed from many of the building's offices. Jie Fang's curvaceous glass façade draws sun into a full-length atrium on the south side, where warm air rises and disperses throughout the building, naturally ventilating its core.

Mindful of the overwhelming evidence, executives, developers and architects should strive to utilize designs that enhance daylight, reaping rewards throughout the lifespan of a building, cutting energy costs and improving the performance of their students, patients, employees--and themselves.

Mr. Hobstetter, a member of the American Institute of Architects, is a principal in Kaplan-McLaughlin-Diaz, a San Francisco-based architectural firm with offices around the world.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Toothpaste

Probable Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in a U.S. Resident

27 Apr 2004 @ 15:43
Most conventional toothpastes use saccharin as a sweetener. Although it has not been proven that saccharin causes cancer in humans, many studies have linked it to cancer in laboratory animals, and some experts, including Dr. Samuel Epstein of the University of Illinois Medical Center and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, recommend that consumers avoid it.

Fluoride has also come under fire in recent years because of its suspected ties to bone cancer, hip fractures and fluorosis, white spots and blotching on teeth caused by excessive ingestion of fluoride. Although the American Dental Association (ADA) strongly endorses fluoride-containing products, claiming they are safe and effective for cavity prevention, some experts argue that if fluoride can damage tooth-forming cells, as in fluorisis, then other harm to the body may also occur.

Triclosan is the most often used antibacterial agent in toothpaste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers triclosan a pesticide and a chlorophenol, part of a class of chemicals thought to cause cancer in humans. Sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate, a foaming agent, and sorbitol are two other oral hygiene ingredients whose safety has been questioned. And most so-called "whitening" toothpastes use sodium or potassium hydroxides, also known as lye, considered a poison by the Food and Drug Administration.

For many years the alternatives to mass-market toothpastes were plain baking soda or bad-tasting pastes that most adults disliked and kids refused to use. There are many new pastes on the market now that, if somewhat less sweet-tasting than those with saccharin, taste great-and the dental establishment is warming up to them.

The ADA has awarded its seal to Tom's of Maine, which makes a large variety of natural-ingredient toothpastes. And the Journal of Clinical Dentistry found that Herbal Toothpaste and Gum Therapy from The Natural Dentist outperformed Colgate's Total in reducing gingivitis and teeth stains. The Natural Dentist makes pastes and gels in a variety of flavors that contain sodium laureth sulfate, but don't use artificial sweeteners, preservatives or dyes. Peelu Toothpaste, which comes in Spearmint, Cinnamon and Peppermint flavors, uses peelu, a vegetable fiber, as an abrasive and glycerine as a cleanser, rather than a synthetic detergent. Weleda makes toothpaste free of saccharin and sodium lauryl sulfate. Its Pink Toothpaste with Myrrh contains nine essential oils for gum health, and its Children's Tooth Gel is made especially for young teeth.

For consumers who wish to avoid fluoride, Tom's of Maine makes fluoride-free natural toothpaste for adults and children. Tom's also makes a whitening toothpaste that uses silica; Jason Natural Products makes one that uses both silica and bamboo powder. More >

Thursday, December 25, 2003

Risks of FluMist Vaccine An Investigation

25 Dec 2003 @ 15:26
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

MMWR Weekly October 18, 2002 / 51(41);927-929

Probable Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in a U.S. Resident --- Florida, 2002

On April 18, 2002, the Florida Department of Health and CDC announced the occurrence of a likely case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in a Florida resident aged 22 years. This report documents the investigation of this case and underscores the importance of physicians increasing their suspicion for vCJD in patients presenting with clinical features described in this report who have spent time in areas in which bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is endemic.

In early November 2001, the patient sought medical care for depression and memory loss that adversely affected the patient's work performance. The primary-care physician referred the patient to a psychologist. In early December 2001, the patient received a traffic ticket for failing to yield the right of way. In mid-December 2001, the patient had involuntary muscular movements, gait changes, difficulty dressing, and incontinence. In January 2002, the patient was evaluated in a local emergency department for these symptoms. A computerized tomography scan of the head revealed no abnormalities; a panic attack was diagnosed, and the patient was treated with an anti-anxiety medication.

In late January 2002, the patient's mother, a resident of the United Kingdom, took the patient to England, where medical evaluations were conducted during the next 3 months. During this period, the patient's memory loss and other neurologic symptoms worsened. The patient experienced falls with minor injuries, had difficulty taking a shower and dressing, and was unable to remember a home telephone number or to make accurate mathematical calculations. The patient subsequently became confused, hallucinated, and had speech abnormalities with lack of content, bradykinesia, and spasticity. The patient was referred to a neurologist, who suspected vCJD and subsequently referred the patient to the National Prion Clinic in the United Kingdom.

Medical evaluations at the National Prion Clinic included an electroencephalogram (EEG), which revealed a normal alpharhythm, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, which revealed signal abnormalities in the pulvinar and metathalamus region that were suggestive of vCJD. The patient had a tonsil biopsy, and a Western blot analysis of the biopsy tissue demonstrated the presence of protease-resistant prion protein (PrP-res) with the characteristic pattern of vCJD; an immunohistochemical test for PrP-res also supported a diagnosis of vCJD. Analysis of the prion protein gene detected no mutation and showed methionine homozygosity at codon 129, consistent with all 105 vCJD patients tested in the United Kingdom (R. Will, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland, personal communication, 2002).

The patient received experimental treatment with quinacrine for 3 months. As of late September 2002, the patient had become bedridden, experienced considerable weight loss requiring surgical insertion of a feeding tube, and was no longer communicating with family members. On the basis of a case definition developed in the United Kingdom, the patient's illness met criteria for a probable case of vCJD (1).

The patient was born in the United Kingdom in 1979 and moved to Florida in 1992. The patient never had donated or received blood, plasma, or organs and never had received human growth hormone. There was no family history of CJD. In October 2001, before the onset of the illness, the patient's wisdom teeth were extracted, but there was no history of major surgery.

Reported by: S Wiersma, MD, State Epidemiologist, Florida Dept of Health. S Cooper, MRCP, R Knight, FRCP, National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland; AM Kennedy, MD, National Prion Clinic, Dept of Neurology, St. Mary's Hospital, London; S Joiner, MSc, Medical Research Council Prion Unit, Dept of Neurodegenerative Disease, Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom. E Belay, MD, LB Schonberger, MD, Div of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, CDC.

Editorial Note:
Variant CJD was first reported in 1996 in the United Kingdom, where an outbreak of BSE had been occurring among cattle since the early 1980s (2). Strong laboratory and epidemiologic evidence indicates that vCJD is linked causally with BSE (3). Although specific foods that transmit the BSE agent to humans have not been identified, transmission is believed to occur primarily by processed food items that contain infectious bovine tissues such as the brain or spinal cord. As of early October 2002, a total of 138 vCJD cases were reported worldwide, including the case described in this report. Consistent with the conclusion that the agent of BSE is also the agent responsible for vCJD, most vCJD cases (n=128) were reported in the United Kingdom, where most BSE cases in cattle have occurred (1).

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Sunday, October 19, 2003

Nature's Oldest Drug Is Now the World's Newest Pharmaceutical

19 Oct 2003 @ 13:17
October 3, 2003
Risks of FluMist Vaccine An Investigation
By Dr. Sherri Tenpenny
[link]

"MedImmune, the manufacturer of FluMist, recently announced that it signed an agreement that makes FluMist, the new intranasal influenza vaccine, readily available to people as they shop at Wal-Mart, the worlds biggest retailer."

[1]As the physician in charge of a bustling Integrative medical clinic, questions about vaccines frequently arise. After reading about the MedImmune-Walmart joint venture, I felt compelled to warn our patients and our internet subscribers of the potentially serious complications that may come from direct and passive exposure to this new vaccine. I also wanted to give a "heads up" to everyone regarding the onslaught of advertising that is about to besiege them.

Hundreds of TV and print advertisements have been designed to persuade everyone into taking the FluMist plunge. The campaign will be the "most intense, direct-to-consumer marketing campaign ever waged for a vaccine," costing an estimated $25 million over the next 2.5 month.

[2]. In addition, Wyeth, MedImmune's partner, plans a three-year, $100 million campaign to encourage use of the nasal flu vaccine among physicians.

[3] The television arm of the blitz campaign will focus on the "inconveniences" that your family, friends and co-workers will endure if you don't get the flu shot and subsequently contract the flu. Print advertisements and magazine articles apparently will use scare tactics-similar to those that were used while promoting the smallpox vaccine-which warned of the high possibility of a "bioterror attack using the flu virus."

[4]Apparently, the goal seems to center around frightening-or inducing enough guilt-that everyone would begin to demand the vaccine as soon as it is available. And at nearly $70 a dose, this will be a financial bonanza for MedImmune and Wyeth, who are expecting the vaccine to become the blockbuster new drug that will push MedImmune's revenues to more than $1billion/year.

[5] However, there are many reasons for caution. FluMist contains live (attenuated) influenza viruses that replicate in the nasopharynx of the vaccine recipient. The most common side effects include "cough, runny nose/nasal congestion, irritability, headaches, chills, muscle aches and fever > 100° F."

[6] These symptoms are nearly identical to those the flu vaccine is designed to prevent.

[7]A cause for significant concern is the vaccine's most prevalent side effects: "runny nose" and "nasal congestion." It has been documented that the live viruses from the vaccine can be shed (and potentially spread into the community) from recipient children for up to 21 days,

[8] and even longer from adults.

Important to read the rest
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003

4 comments

15 Oct 2003 @ 13:20
Nature's Oldest Drug Is Now the World's Newest Pharmaceutical

Pubdate: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 Source: The North Bay Bohemian(CA) Copyright: 2003 Metro Publishing Inc.
Author: Mari Kane GW Pharmaceuticals

Relief in Pill Form

NATURE'S OLDEST DRUG IS NOW THE WORLD'S NEWEST PHARMACEUTICAL

Beckie Nikkel does not consider herself a "sufferer" of multiple sclerosis because she has learned to deal with the disease by taking control of the medicine she takes. Five years ago, the 50-year-old Santa Rosa grandmother was taking a dozen different meds, some to counteract the side effects of others, and her next step would have been to use a baclofen pump to stop the muscle spasms, which would have rendered her legs useless. That's when she turned to cannabis and became active with the Sonoma Alliance for Medical Marijuana. In late September, she joined a convocation of activist organizations in Washington, D.C., to lobby congress and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society about cannabis.

"I used to use a vaporizer, but now I do more ingesting of cannabis nectars and candy," she says, referring to THC-laden pops distributed privately. "Those suckers work wonders, but I would love to have other natural options, especially if they were covered by insurance."

Though the federal government's stance against all things cannabis continues to thwart the efforts of Nikkel and many others, research in Europe--where the climate is remarkably milder when it comes to marijuana--is pushing forward.

At the head of the new wave, British-based GW Pharmaceuticals stands out. Under government license and using plant strains developed by HortaPharm of Amsterdam (owned by expatriate Americans David Watson and Robert Clark), the company grows high-grade, finely tuned marijuana at a secret location in the south of England. With that crop, GW has isolated beneficial cannabinoids--the active ingredients of cannabis--and created a sublingual (under the tongue) spray for the treatment of multiple sclerosis symptoms.

Of course, Beckie Nikkel currently has no chance of getting her hands on the medicine legally. If she did, according to GW's three years of clinical trials, she could find relief from her neuropathic pain and muscle spasms, and she could get a more peaceful sleep. Her appetite would increase. If Betty Nikkel could get GW's medicine (a blend of two cannabinoids brand-named Sativex) through her insurance company, she could feel a lot better.

GW Pharmaceuticals hopes to gain approval from the British government for Sativex by the end of this year. In May, the company signed a lucrative marketing agreement with the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer to help them launch the product in Europe in 2004. So now, the world's first natural cannabis pharmaceutical maker has nowhere to go but up, yet the inevitable question remains, how high?

Cannabis may well be one of the world's greatest natural remedies. Human beings have long used cannabis to relieve symptoms of everything from nausea to pain. In fact, the human relationship to cannabis is so tightly ingrained in our physiology that special receptors have evolved in our brains to link to the chemical components of the plant.

Cannabis sativa, what we now know as "marijuana," officially entered the Western pharmacopoeia over one and a half centuries ago, during Victorian times, when cannabis medicines were administered in the form of tinctures. Queen Victoria is perhaps the most celebrated consumer of early cannabis tonics.

Having a record of no known cases of fatal overdose in the history of the world, the safety of marijuana is miles ahead of even aspirin. The biggest side effects of cannabis are euphoria and possibly paranoia. With its reputation of being one of the least toxic therapeutic substances on earth, the market potential for quality-assured, health-insured cannabis drugs has not gone unnoticed by pharmaceutical companies.

Marijuana is nothing without cannabinoids. These molecules of medicament are found in the millions of tiny, resinous pistils that shoot from the cannabis leaves. The mightiest cannabinoid of all is delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), from which the famed euphoric effect is attributed. But cannabis therapy does not end with THC. All kinds of analgesic, antispasmodic, anticonvulsant, antitremor, antipsychotic, anti-inflammatory, anti-emetic, and appetite-stimulant benefits are derived from other, lesser known cannabinoids, such as cannabinadiol (CBD). GW Pharmaceuticals has combined THC and CBD to make Sativex.

"Our intention, once we have a product license application in the U.K., is to use the mutual recognition procedure to obtain approvals in other European Union member states, probably during 2004," says GW's spokesperson Mark Rogerson. "We will also be seeking to market the product in Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The U.S. market is a longer-term objective."

Rogerson is not kidding when he says America is a market they'll have to wait for. The Bush administration and the Supreme Court remain in denial of marijuana's medical benefits, and the new DEA administrator Karen Tandy has indicated that raids against California compassion clubs will continue.

By contrast, Europe and Canada have made great strides toward marijuana decriminalization, efforts which often incur the wrath of the U.S. government. Once Sativex is approved in Europe, intrepid American patients who attempt to smuggle it home will have to answer to the customs man, just as if the drug were hashish.

"If [Sativex] has not been approved by the FDA, we would not let it enter the country," said U.S. Customs Service spokesperson Michael Fleming. "If it is prohibited entry, there could be civil and possible criminal penalties attached."

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Friday, October 10, 2003

Male Menopause Out Of The Closet

10 Oct 2003 @ 10:18
Male Menopause Out Of The Closet
By John Schieszer
MSNBC October 1, 2003

Several years ago Dave O'Neal, 47, was having serious health problems that no one could diagnose. The Columbia, Ill., man was totally uninterested in sex and had very low energy levels. O'Neal went to several doctors and even a therapist but no one could tell him what was wrong. Eventually O'Neal was diagnosed with androgen deficiency, a problem of low testosterone levels in the body, also known as male menopause.

"One doctor just told me to take some vitamins and I thought it was depression, but they would never diagnose it as full blown depression," says O'Neal.

As men age, their testosterone levels gradually decline and some men go through what is now called male menopause. But many never get diagnosed or treated because until now male menopause has been in the closet.

"The male ego doesn't usually ever want to admit to having a problem. Men want to be macho and if they have a problem they just don't want to talk about it," says O'Neal. "I have had several guys come up to me and ask me questions. But the guys will only talk to me in private."

O'Neal thinks the issue is now becoming more mainstream in part because he and so many other men are finally beginning to discuss their experiences.

O'Neal has been giving himself testosterone injections twice a month for the past 5 years and now has no symptoms of male menopause. He also has few problems with depression and says he has a healthy sex life.

SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS

While menopause is relative easy to diagnose in women < their menstrual periods stop < diagnosing male menopause (also known as andropause) in men is trickier and requires a blood test to check testosterone levels. Consequently, the condition often goes undetected.

"Very few people are addressing the problem of male menopause and the profound consequences the loss of testosterone can take on a man," says Dr. David Thomas, a professor of geriatrics at St. Louis University School of Medicine.

Thomas says of the estimated 4 million to 5 million American men with low testosterone, only 5 percent currently are being treated. About one in every 10 men between the ages of 40 and 60 has low testosterone. Among men over the age of 60, the numbers jump to one in every five men, according to researchers.

Dr. John Morley, head of the department of geriatrics at St. Louis University, believes male menopause is a serious condition that needs to be addressed.

"I think it is still in the closet but it is gradually coming out of the closet," says Dr. John Morley, who heads up the department of geriatrics at St. Louis University. "Low testosterone is a real condition that can cause men problems with their sex drive, strength and memory, and make them susceptible to weakened bones. But detecting the problem can be sticky because many men don't want to admit their sex drive isn't what it used to be."

Morley has now created a 10-question, Androgen Deficiency in Aging Men (ADAM) screening tool to help physicians detect the problem.

READ ON

Saturday, October 4, 2003

Article On Value Of Fear And Anger

4 Oct 2003 @ 12:37
THESE MEN WANT THEIR FORESKINS BACK ACTIVISTS DECRY CIRCUMCISION AND OFFER 'RESTORATION' PROCESS

By Jon Bonné MSNBC

"I am covered and have overhang." R. Wayne Griffiths, 70 and a grandfather, is speaking frankly about his foreskin -- which really is the only way one can speak on that topic. More to the point, he is gleefully describing the sensation of having his foreskin back after decades of living with a circumcised penis. "It's delightful," he says.

As head of the National Organization for Restoring Men , Griffiths spends his days advocating that circumcised men reclaim what he suggests is their birthright: a penis unmolded by the will of others.

Medically popularized in the early 20th century, circumcision has become a routine option for newborn American boys. But a backlash has surfaced in recent years, often bolstered by conflicting medical data about the procedure's benefits. Out of that debate has emerged a tiny but growing movement of men who not only oppose circumcision, but want back what they consider taken from them. They want to regrow their foreskin.

The notion doesn't pass many peoples' laugh test. But NORM and similar groups are quite serious about straightforwardly counseling men on how to restore this tender bit of flesh. As they portray it, circumcision comprises an insidious conspiracy; in performing an unnecessary procedure, doctors are either ignorant or greedy; hospitals simply look the other way; parents don't know any better and are hounded into consent.

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Friday, October 3, 2003

Mouse Droppings

4 comments

3 Oct 2003 @ 06:12
Synchronistic that my friend Greg sent me this article about avoiding rat and mouse droppings. He didn't know that I had just finished sweeping out a shed that had a half grocery bag full of mouse poop.

I wore goggles, rubber gloves, a face mask with a bandana over that.

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A stock clerk was sent to clean up a storeroom in Maui, Hawaii. When he got back, he was complaining that the storeroom was really filthy and that he had noticed dried mouse or rat droppings in some areas.

A couple of days later, he started to feel like he was coming down with a stomach flu, complained of sore joints and headaches, and began to vomit. He went to bed and never really got up again. Within two days he was severely ill and weak. His blood sugar count was down to 66, and his face and eyeballs were yellow. He was rushed to the emergency at Pali-Momi, where he was diagnosed to be suffering from massive organ failure. He died shortly before midnight.

No one would have made the connection between his job and his death, had it not been for a doctor who specifically asked if he had been in a warehouse or exposed to dried rat or mouse droppings at any time. They said there is a virus (much like the Hanta virus) that lives in dried rat and mouse droppings. Once dried, these droppings are like dust and can easily be breathed in or ingested if a person does not wear protective gear or fails to wash face and hands thoroughly.

An autopsy was performed on the clerk to verify the doctor's suspicions.

This is why it is extremely important to ALWAYS carefully rinse off the tops of canned sodas or foods, and to wipe off pasta packaging, cereal boxes, and so on.

Almost everything you buy in a supermarket was stored in a warehouse at one time or another, and stores themselves often have rodents.

Most of us remember to wash vegetables and fruits but never think of boxes and cans.

The ugly truth is, even the most modern, upper-class, super store has rats and mice. And their warehouse most assuredly does!

Whenever you buy any canned soft drink, please make sure that you wash the top with running water and soap or, if that is not available, drink with a straw.

The investigation of soda cans by the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta discovered that the tops of soda cans can be encrusted with dried rat's urine, which is so toxic it can be lethal. Canned drinks and other foodstuffs are stored in warehouses and containers that are usually infested with Rodents, and then they get transported to retail outlets without being properly cleaned. Please forward this message to the people you care about. More >

Sunday, September 28, 2003

Natural Woman, Natural Man Newsletter

28 Sep 2003 @ 01:08
New article on the value of fear and anger.

Please go to Emotional Intelligence Network to read it -- it's an important article for people concerned with the intelligence of emotions:

Here is the start:

"Listening to the news for an hour is enough to stir fear in anyone. Like a clammy fog, the fear seems to constrict your heart and drain your energy.

It feels bad -- so it must be bad, right?

While fear and other unpleasant emotions certainly can be debilitating, these emotions are not bad for you, they are not destructive, and they are not negative. Rather, they are a source of vital information and protection."

The author hopes you will read it and either email him comments, or use the "comments" function on the site (scroll to the bottom of the page and click "post comment"). More >

Tuesday, September 2, 2003

Are American soldiers in Iraq dying due to depleted uranium?

2 Sep 2003 @ 22:39
Fello Ojai resident and former housemate Jock Doubleday sent me this copy of his latest newletter.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to a sparkling new issue of Natural Woman, Natural Man Today!

We've had many responses to previous issues. All of your letters are published below.

The newsletter reaches 9,000 subscribers worldwide.

Congratulations to all of you for caring enough about your world to want to make a change.

In health,

Jock Doubleday Director
Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.
A California nonprofit corporation

* * *

NWNM Today, Vol. 6

August 31, 2003

"Internal and External Metabolism, and the Finger of God" by Jock Doubleday

I was working on my book "Spontaneous Creation," this morning, and I noticed that printed on the inside of my cereal box was a mini-dissertation on the advantages of organic agriculture.

I had to rip the box open to read this treatise, of course. But ripping the box open was very satisfying, much more satisfying, for instance, than trying to open the plastic bag that contained the cereal.

The article on the inside of box was entitled, "Why it's a good idea to eat certified organic foods."

Does anyone really need to be told why it's a good idea to eat organic foods?

Of course, from a marketing standpoint, it's always a good idea to keep hammering home the unique qualities of one's products. And "organic" is still a very unique quality -- at least on American store shelves, where most food products come from foods that are conventionally grown.

By the way, if you're interested, I didn't pour cow's milk on my cereal. (If you are still under the sway of the dairy lobby's Milk Moustache campaign, visit www.notmilk.com for your dis-indoctrination.)

Nor did I grace my organic flakes with soy milk, which I drank for many years but eventually found to be the cause of my knee joint pain. (See "The Magic Bean? Soy-Tainly Not!" by Tim O'Shea at www.thedoctorwithin.com).

But this article is about organic agriculture, not cereal accoutrements, so let's just move ahead. The title of this article is "Internal and External Metabolism, etc." and it's time we got to the core of the matter and start talking about insides and outsides.

Unfortunately, I can't do that. At least not without telling you another story.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine gave a talk to which he brought two trays of hors d'oeuvres. One of the trays he sprayed with a can of Raid. The other he left alone. Then he invited audience members to come up and eat.

It's your guess how many people ate from the tray of hors d'oeuvres sprayed with Raid.

My friend's talk was on conventional vs. organic agriculture. (By the way, my friend's name is Dale, and he subscribes to this newsletter. But he is so busy healing his community with chiropractic, and fathering and husbanding his family, that he probably won't have time to read it. So I could actually exaggerate certain parts of the above story. But I won't, because in my view no exaggeration is needed.)

Anyway, we make a small leap from Dale's presentation to the idea that the modern practice of organic agriculture springs from the extraordinary notion that one should not poison one's food.

Running like a deep and verdant river beneath the ground of this common wisdom is the philosophy of internal and external metabolism.

The philosophy of internal and external metabolism contends that the life processes of the human body are a microcosmic mirror of the life processes of the earth body. Which is to say, our bodily terrain (the land of our intestines) contains microorganisms that function in ways similar to the ways that microorganisms in living soil function.

I wish Dale were here to explain the details to you. In fact, why don't I just call him up and see if he has anything to say . . .

Well, I called him, and he happened to be home, because it's Sunday around five. And he gave me the following words on the topic off the top of his head at top speed.

Fortunately I type fast.

Dale: "In the human, there is bacteria all over the place. You have microbes everywhere, from your mouth to your butt, very busy, creating acids and enzymes that break food particles down.

"The interesting thing about bowel bacteria is that the bowel bacteria break food down and wisely translate these nutrients into the bloodstream through the villi, which are like little fingers all through the small intestine. Bacteria attach themselves to these fingers or hairs and eat the food you're eating, and they "translate" the food into the villi. So intelligent digested food goes into the capillaries in the villi and then into the liver.

"When you do not have bowel bacteria, there is no filter. Your body can't break down the food. So the villi take in larger molecules, which is not safe. And these molecules go prematurely into the liver.

"Think of the human bowel as having a lot of parking spaces. What you want to do is to fill those parking spaces with good bacteria. Then yeast, Candida, etc. can't park in your bowel. There is no place for them. And if you have good bacteria in the parking spots, then you get high acid secretion, which move viruses and Candida away. Viruses and bad fungus don't do well in a high acid environment. ((The bowel bacteria have other functions, too, like recycling estrogen. Women who have good bowel bacteria don't get osteoporosis, because they are recycling, instead of losing, estrogen. And females' good vaginal and urinary bacteria is acidophilus. They get yeast infections when acidity decreases after losing acidophilus. Birth control pills, certain drugs, make women too alkaline.)

"So . . . the soil has bugs, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. The most important is the fungi. Mushrooms, for instance, have mycelia, which are the little white hairs. The mushroom itself is just a concentration of these little white hairs. One mushroom even though it's only three inches tall is actually going hundreds of feet out into the soil with its mycelia.

"So you throw an apple into the dirt, and the little bugs -- sow bugs, ants, etc. -- come and break it up into finer and finer particles: poop. And at that point the soil fungus can eat it. And the soil fungus eats these tiny particles of organic material. And the fungus has little fingers that go into the little fingers of plants' root hairs. A single rye grass plant has fourteen miles of root hairs.

"Now, a plant's root hairs have little fingers just like the villi in the human bowel. And the soil fungus brings its own little fingers and penetrates the plant root fingers' cells. And the fungus translates the nutrients into the root hair. And the plant gets exactly the right amount of nutrients it needs as translated by the soil fungus.

"The same way that [my wife] Diane eats food and her breast milk is perfect for her baby, the fungus is the mama to the plant. Because it translates perfectly the organic matter in the soil. The plant is literally fueled by the mycorrhiza. ('Myco' means fungus and 'rhiza' means root. So mycorrhiza is the combination of fungus and root.)

"If you do not have the soil fungus because you have used synthetic (chemical) fertilizers that kill earthworms and fungus, then plants take in nutrients arbitrarily. They take in too much sulphur or too much iron, etc. So it's like a baby that's at a smorgasbord that doesn't know what to eat, so it eats anything. It doesn't have mother's milk.

"So plant diseases are because plants have lost the proper translation of food. Whereas when it has mycorrhiza, the mycorrhiza don't allow the plant to eat bad food.

"What the mycorrhiza does for the plant is like God touching Adam's finger. That's my metaphor. And if you have the right bowel bacteria in your intestine, that's God's finger helping you out."

In health, Jock

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Rape Law: Yes Can Become No

12 Aug 2003 @ 14:07
Are American soldiers in Iraq dying due to depleted uranium?

By James Conachy
4 August 2003

The office of the US Army Surgeon General informed the media July 31 that teams of medical specialists have been dispatched to both Iraq and the Landstuhl military hospital in Germany to investigate why a pneumonia-like condition is striking down American military personnel who took part in the invasion of Iraq. At least 100 soldiers have been hospitalized with severe respiratory problems since March 1. Fifteen have been so ill they have required ventilator support to stay alive. Two have died, while three reportedly remain under close supervision at Landstuhl.

Three of the critical cases occurred in March, three in April, two in May, three in June and four in July. Fourteen were Army personnel and one was from the Marines. A localized epidemic has been ruled out. The troops who have fallen ill belong to diverse units and were operating in different areas of Iraq and in at least one case in Kuwait. An Army official told reporters: “It is pneumonia. The question is, what is the cause?” According to the Army, there is no evidence that any of the cases have been caused by exposure to chemical or biological weapons, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or environmental toxins.

It is not the number of cases that is concerning the military hierarchy. According to the spokesperson of the US Army Surgeon General, there are normally nine cases of pneumonia per 10,000 US soldiers per year that are serious enough to require hospitalization. Based on that statistic, 100 cases of pneumonia in five months among the several hundred thousand army and marine personnel who were involved in the war on Iraq are only slightly higher than average.

The dispatch of the experts therefore raises disturbing questions. There is clearly something about either the nature, or the severity, of the cases the Army Surgeon General feels warrants investigation.

On July 16, the News-Leader site operating out of Springfield, Missouri published a detailed report describing the symptoms of one of the soldiers who has died from the alleged pneumonia. Josh Neusche, a 20-year-old, fit and healthy Missouri National Guardsman, collapsed in Baghdad on July 2. He was evacuated to Landstuhl, Germany. His family was informed he was suffering from pneumonia caused by fluid in his lungs. According to his mother, his liver, kidneys and muscles then began to break down. He was placed on dialysis, but fell into a coma and died on July 12.

For anyone familiar with the research into the medical effects of exposure to depleted uranium, the details of Josh Neusche’s death would have to ring alarm bells. The 2001 World Health Organization report into the issue notes: “Brief accidental exposure to high concentrations of uranium hexafluoride has caused acute respiratory illness, which may be fatal.” [Full report available at http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/ir_pub/en/]

Scenarios that could cause a “brief, accidental exposure to high concentrations of uranium hexafluoride” definitely would include being in the vicinity of a vehicle or building struck by depleted uranium munitions; traveling in or being in the vicinity of a vehicle that is armored with depleted uranium and sustains damage; or being involved in the cleanup of such a vehicle. The organs most affected by exposure are the lungs and kidneys.

In a July 30 article on US casualties in Iraq, the World Socialist Web Site reported the unconfirmed allegation in the July 17 Saudi newspaper Al-Watan that three US servicemen had been evacuated from Iraq suffering symptoms of depleted uranium exposure.

The WSWS noted that if this proved true, it would not be surprising. Thousands of US troops in Iraq are likely to have been exposed to DU to some degree, absorbing it either by inhaling contaminated dust or ingesting it from contaminated water, food and soil. Initial estimates are that between 100 and 200 tons of DU munitions were used in Iraq and that at least 17 incidents took place during the combat phase that would most likely have resulted in US and British personnel being exposed to high concentrations of DU particles. [See http://www.antenna.nl/~wise/uranium/pdf/duiq03.pdf]

On July 28, as part of the research for the July 30 article, “America’s maimed come home from Iraq,” this WSWS correspondent submitted a list of questions to the US Department of Defense, addressed to media@defenselink.mil. One of the specific questions we asked of the Department of Defense was: “Have any US military personnel been medically evacuated from Iraq due to the possible side-affects of exposure to depleted uranium?” To date, the WSWS has received no reply. More >

Thursday, July 31, 2003

WTO Rules Will Permit USDA To Bypass Food Safety Laws

31 Jul 2003 @ 22:07
Rape Law: Yes Can Become No

(AP) A new rape law in Illinois attempts to clarify the issue of consent by emphasizing that people can change their mind while having sex.

Under the law, if someone says "no" at any time the other person must stop or it becomes rape. The National Crime Victim Law Institute said it believed the law is the first of its kind in the country.

Lyn Schollett, general counsel for the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said the law was important to make it clear to victims, offenders, prosecutors and juries that people have the right to halt sexual activity at any time.

"I think it will empower prosecutors in charging cases where the victim and the offender have a sexual history," she said.

But the director of the Victim Advocacy & Research Group in Boston said it would be hard to imagine courts not upholding a woman's right to withdraw consent.

"To me, it's demeaning," Wendy Murphy said. "It's like the old saying: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' I don't think it was broke."

The law was inspired by a California case involving two 17-year-olds who had sex at a party. The girl changed her mind about having sex, but the boy did not stop immediately.

He was charged with rape, and it took years for the courts to decide that he could be found guilty under California law. The California Supreme Court ruled in January that a man can be convicted if a woman first consents but later asks him to stop.

Lawmakers said they wanted to avoid the same kind of long legal battle in Illinois. Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the law Friday but did not announce it until Monday. More >

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Food Companies Knew Products Were Addictive

30 Jul 2003 @ 20:43
WTO Rules Will Permit USDA To Bypass Food Safety Laws

More bad meat getting to the supermarket shelves.

Trading Away Food Safety Implementation of Trade Rules Allows USDA to Bypass US Food Safety Laws While Border Inspections Drop Dramatically

Public Citizen Press Releases
Providing the latest information about Public Citizen activities
7-10-3

New Public Citizen Report Documents How U.S. Implementation of Trade Obligations is Leading to USDA Approval of Questionable Imported Meat

WASHINGTON, DC -- United States trade commitments under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have resulted in federal food safety officials allt; a 65 percent drop in the rate of imported meat and poultry being inspected.

On average between October 2001 and September 2002, 2.5 million pounds of meat were rejected per quarter, but in the last quarter of 2002, just 700,000 pounds were rejected. More than a million pounds of uninspected imported meat may have made it onto supermarket shelves in late 2002 with the USDA's seal of approval.

The Public Citizen Report

"Equivalency" is an obligation of several WTO agreements, as well as NAFTA. It is designed to allow goods produced under different rules and regulations to be imported into another country with minimal inspection at the border. Before the United States entered the WTO, the USDA required other countries to have standards equal to ours, and Environment Program.

"There is a disturbing pattern of country after country's meat being declared equivalent despite being produced in plants not required to obey the same rules as U.S. plants. It's time for Congress to protect consumers by requiring imported meat to meet U.S. standards."

In 2000, Public Citizen began filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the documentation underlying meat inspection equivalency determinations for a number of countries. In response, the FSIS produced audit reports for 12 countries and allowed Public Citizen to review several files but claimed that other information was so widely dispersed that providing it would be burdensome and time-consuming. The agency demanded that Public Citizen pay more than $2,000 before gaining further access.

In 2001, the FSIS began posting the most recent audit reports and sothe United States a part of the WTO, made statutory changes to the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act that in 1995 resulted in minor, seemingly insignificant changes to U.S. meat and poultry inspection regulations by replacing the word "equal" with the word "equivalent." Since 1995, the FSIS has declared the meat inspection systems of 43 nations "equivalent" and the countries eligible to export fresh meat or processed meat products into the United States, although not all 43 countries are currently exporting meat to the United States. In 2002, the amount of imported meat and poultry exceeded 4 billion pounds.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the USDA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received money to increase border inspections, but in 2003, the FDA is projected to inspect just 1.3 percent of food imports into the United States. More >

Monday, July 28, 2003

Masturbating May Protect Against Prostate Cancer

28 Jul 2003 @ 12:02
Revealed: Food Companies Knew Products Were Addictive

By Robert Matthews,
Science Correspondent

Multinational food companies have known for years of research that suggests many of their products trigger chemical reactions in the brain which lead people to overeat, The Telegraph can reveal.

Scientists working for Nestle and Unilever have been quietly investigating how certain foods, such as chocolate biscuits, burgers and snacks, make people binge-eat, thereby fuelling obesity. The companies insist that there is no proof that the foods create bio-chemical reactions that make people eat too much. They are not yet prepared to issue consumer warnings or change the nature of the products.

However, scientists working for the industry have said manufacturers fear they have created foods that undermine the body's abilities to control intake and are battling to find a solution. "We have created a bio-chemical monster," one said.

The revelation will be seized on by those who allege that the food industry has been reckless. More than 300 million people worldwide are now deemed clinically obese, with an estimated 2.5 million dying each year as a result of being overweight. In Britain, more than one in five adults is obese - triple the figure of 20 years ago.

Earlier this year America's leading fast-food chains, including McDonald's and Burger King, were warned of possible legal action from obese people following research on mice and rats suggesting that fast food could trigger overeating. It is now clear that the industry has known for years of similar results from research on humans.

One scientist who acts as a consultant to food manufacturers said: "They are aware that they have been too successful in creating food that some people just can't say no to. It's an enormous problem."

The overeating effect is thought to be triggered by opioids, chemicals which produce a desire to eat more while reducing the "sated" feeling that normally kills appetite.

Research being studied by the industry shows that although the effect is only short-lived, it can have a dramatic effect on food intake. According to a recent review of 20 years of research by scientists at the University of Sussex, when release of opioids was blocked using drugs, intake among human volunteers fell by 21 per cent. The effect was even larger among obese people, whose intake fell by 33 per cent.

Further research also suggests that the opioids effect is strongest with products that involve combinations of foods which are typically high in fat and carbohydrates. These combinations are routinely used to boost the so-called palatability of products, with chocolate being added to cereals and biscuits, cheese added to savoury snacks, and buns with a high sugar content being used for hamburgers and cheeseburgers.

The industry has long sought to drive up the palatability of its products. Now, however, it is becoming clear that palatability reflects the effect food has on the brain.

Dr Martin Yeomans, of the University of Sussex, a leading authority on opioids, said: "I am confident that opioids play a role in food intake."

Dr Yeomans will present the latest evidence linking palatability to over-eating at a scientific meeting this week which is sponsored by leading food companies, including Nestle, the world's largest, and Unilever.

A spokesman for Nestle in Vevey, Switzerland, confirmed that the company has been studying the role of palatability and opioids in food intake for many years. He said: "We have projects currently running to investigate this and other aspects of obesity and the company will make all necessary changes when there is significant scientific evidence to support such action."

However, the company did not consider the evidence strong enough to require action: "We have to be certain that there are no unexpected negative aspects." Unilever, which owns the Knorr, Birds Eye and Ragu brands, is also investigating the links.

At this week's conference in Groningen, Holland, scientists will present strategies for dealing with the issue, including greater consumer education and labelling.

The findings about the effects of opioids were seized on yesterday by Prof John Banzhaf of George Washington University, Washington DC, who played a key role in the billion-dollar lawsuits against tobacco companies during the 1990s.

During the 1990s, evidence emerged that the industry had manipulated cigarettes' content to enhance their addictive nature. In 1998, the industry reached a settlement with 46 American state governments totalling $206 billion.

Prof Banzhaf described the food industry's knowledge of possible links between high-calorie food and over-eating by humans as "astounding". "This would seem to constitute failure to disclose a material fact - information that might sway the decision of consumers, had they known about it," he said.

While there is no suggestion that the food industry knowingly manipulates its products to boost over-consumption, Prof Banzhaf said there were parallels with the case against the tobacco industry. "They said smokers smoke for the taste, and it had nothing to do with the brain. It sounds to me that we have something very similar here." More >

Thursday, July 17, 2003

17 Jul 2003 @ 12:51
Masturbating May Protect Against Prostate Cancer
By Douglas Fox
New Scientist
July 16, 2003

It will make you go blind. It will make your palms grow hairy. Such myths about masturbation are largely a thing of the past. But the latest research has even better news for young men: frequent self-pleasuring could protect against the most common kind of cancer.

A team in Australia led by Graham Giles of The Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne asked 1079 men with prostate cancer to fill in a questionnaire detailing their sexual habits, and compared their responses with those of 1259 healthy men of the same age. The team concludes that the more men ejaculate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer.

The protective effect is greatest while men are in their twenties: those who had ejaculated more than five times per week in their twenties, for instance, were one-third less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer later in life ( BJU International , vol 92, p 211).

The results contradict those of previous studies, which have suggested that having had many sexual partners, or a high frequency of sexual activity, increases the risk of prostate cancer by up to 40 per cent. The key difference is that these earlier studies defined sexual activity as sexual intercourse, whereas the latest study focused on the number of ejaculations, whether or not intercourse was involved.

The team speculates that infections caused by intercourse may increase the risk of prostate cancer. "Had we been able to remove ejaculations associated with sexual intercourse, there should have been an even stronger protective effect of other ejaculations," they suggest. "Men have many ways of using their prostate which do not involve women or other men," Giles adds.

Macho exaggeration

Giles accepts the possibility that the men who completed the questionnaires could have lied about their habits. But he doubts this skewed the results, since questions about masturbation are unlikely to evoke the same macho exaggeration as questions about, say, number of sexual partners.

But why should ejaculating more often cut the risk of prostate cancer? The team speculates that ejaculation prevents carcinogens building up in the gland. The prostate, together with the seminal vesicles, secretes the bulk of the fluid in semen, which is rich in substances such as potassium, zinc, fructose and citric acid.

Generating the fluid involves concentrating these components from the bloodstream up to 600-fold - and this could be where the trouble starts. Studies in dogs show that carcinogens such as 3-methylcholanthrene, found in cigarette smoke, are also concentrated in prostate fluid.

"It's a prostatic stagnation hypothesis," says Giles. "The more you flush the ducts out, the less there is to hang around and damage the cells that line them."

Sexual repertoire

His findings suggest an intriguing parallel between prostate cancer and breast cancer, as recent studies indicate that lactating reduces a woman's risk of breast cancer, perhaps because this also flushes out carcinogens. Alternatively, ejaculation might induce prostate cells to mature fully, making them less susceptible to carcinogens.

"All these mechanisms are totally speculative," cautions breast cancer expert Loren Lipworth of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Maryland.

But if the finding is confirmed, future health advice from doctors may no longer be restricted to diet and exercise. "Masturbation is part of people's sexual repertoire," says Anthony Smith, deputy director of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

"If these findings hold up, then it's perfectly reasonable that men should be encouraged to masturbate," he says.

Monday, July 14, 2003

Frankenfood Follies

16 Year Old Remote Healer

14 Jul 2003 @ 23:06
Frankenfood Follies
or "the woods are their own revenge..."
By Joseph Fasciani
7-13-3

Starting in 1982 and until now I've worked as a horticultural consultant to government and private enterprise, advising new farm operators and upgrading old farms. Although I'd caution people against it, I saw many instances of "the next great thing" rushed into production, then withdrawn after five to ten years of problems. A fine example of this was shown on a CBC documentary some years ago about farms in Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. Because of the area's long history of low farm income, Canada Agriculture promoted the "salvation of the family farm" by turning them into monocultural producers for mass market food factories, mostly potatoes for chip makers..

After twenty years production had not only peaked but the soils and environments were so degraded they were subject to erosion, heavy invasion by pests and diseases, and required ever more costly "fixes". There was one fortunate exception, however. It seems an old-time family farm of less than 160 acres, too small to qualify for monoculture, had maintained its "archaic" mix of small diary herd, vegetables, hay production, and orchard. Having "failed" to make it in the new trend, it was now in very healthy condition in both finances and total environment, and had proved resilient to both market vagaries and environmental degradation. In the end, Canada Agriculture reversed its position and recommended farmers go back to their traditional diverse and sustainable polycultural approach.

If truly conservative thinking and practices were followed rigourously, we would stop creating ever greater "new problems" to solve. Of course, this happens in finance as well, e.g., the egregious Greenspanning phenomenon of the past 20 years, which is why we're in so much trouble. Popular economist and writer Dr. Robert Heilbroner (The Worldly Philosophers, et. al.) had written warnings about this in the late Seventies and early Eighties, when a few souls were concerned the deficit was getting out of control. I felt it was important, so I reprinted an essay of his in my monthly financial newsletter, T.R.A.I.N.

In it he convincingly argues that all the Fed can do is print money and tinker with interest. He did not assert as Greenspan has that its role was to make the economy get up and go by printing more fiat currency. Perhaps it's as simple as "better the devil you know than the devil you just created." Well, Frankenmoney will soon crush what little life is left in the greenback, and then we can all witness another replay of substance, but not style, in history. Hang on to your gold and silver!

The markets are very shaky, trading far more on greed and emotion instead of reason, they tumble on any bad news, in spite of all the "rah rah" cheerleading of the tube boobs and government spokespeople. If people would only read a little history to see that we're going through yet another replay of old scenarios! The Stock Market Crash of '29 was preceded by a real "stock market crash" in farm commodities. Having received record high prices for grains supplied under WW1 contracts, farmers borrowed heavily, bought more land, new equipment, and expanded agressively. Unfortunately, prices then collapsed for several years running, which set off massive defaults and losses of income and properties. The paper markets followed in five years. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now we're being fed a new mythos from the ag chemical and seed giants that biotech this and genetically modified that will save the world. REMEMBER: These are the same clowns who told you this would happen in "The Green Revolution" of the Sixties, another dim history they want you to forget.

The real revolution in technologically driven societies is that they've undergone a transformation in hierarchy and stability. Earlier, traditional societies were stabilised from the bottom up by a mass of worker-drones, with managers atop them, priests and scientists atop them, the ruling classes atop them, and finally the god-king, chief theocrat, whatever, at the pinnacle. Regardless of what we might think of this arrangement, it existed within parameters dictated by a less degraded planet, so it had enough margin that it was stable, and could recover reasonably well from systemic shocks, whether from human ignorance or natural disasters. This was our classic social pyramid.

The crucial problem with societies compulsed by technique (a truer statement of our situation, as technology properly speaking is the study of technique, as biology is the study of life processes, botany the study of plant processes, geology the study of Earth, etc.) is they become extremely complicated, unstable and given to collapse from very slight fractures of their constructs. You know, Shakespeare's "for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost," or Dr Joseph Chilton Pearce's "crack in the cosmic egg" type of thing.

The social pyramid has been inverted: the entire construct is precariously balanced on an individual who generates whatever it is the rest are anxiously waiting for, whether information or a new 'wonder drug.' In 1500, if a book-keeper made an error, the next ten minutes couldn't bring down a cascade of derivatives that beggar nations in their wake. Today a technician makes a simple entry error, and at a single keystroke s/he can send markets staggering in a few seconds, or even nuclear weapons ablaze. I know, because I've done it in my own life!

When I'd written my Canadian Commodities Broker exam, I started in the new office of my former broker, Daniel Ho. I'd shorted a contract earlier in the day, and the market started going against me. Even twenty years ago new electronics had quickened the pace of trading, so I had to offset my position ASAP to prevent further loss. I picked up the phone and called our floor trader at the CBOT and sadly told him to sell another contract. I'd hardly put the phone down when Daniel said from around the corner, "Don't you want to buy instead of sell?" Gadzooks! In my fog over the few hundred dollars I was losing I'd made the wrong order, and immediately called back to place yet another order, now for two contracts. Fortunately for me, in the thirty seconds between the two calls, the market had turned again and I made a hundred dollars! I was too new to this stance, and my thinking hadn't adjusted accordingly.

As Einstein or Oppenheimer remarked after the first atomic bomb went off, "Now everything's changed but our thinking." We've seen this happen enough times now that it should inform all our thinking, but it does not, which is the main reason we keep getting into Big Trouble. To the extent that we fail to act accordingly, it's gotten worse since then, for the reasons set out above. What to do, what to do?

I wrote in a poem thirty-plus years ago, "the woods are their own revenge." Once they are gone, they will be gone for a very long time, maybe forever. Forests twice covered the now arid, barren land of Greece; only ten percent of our planet's original stand of forest remains from three thousand years ago. The oceans are fished out and ready to collapse. The USofA, with five percent of the world's population, consumes sixty percent of its petroleum. What's truly insane is that its military consumes sixty percent of that, so we now have the military going over seas to secure more oil!

I've worked on this Problem and the lesser problems associated with it for a long time; here are some positive conclusions:

1. We don't need any more research or commissions to re-invent the wheel.

2. We already have What We Need in Dr Eugen Loebl's Humanomics, Cobb & Daly's For the Common Good, and E R Schumacher's Small is Beautiful , all published more than fifteen years ago, but not yet put into everyday practise!!

3. It's time to re-establish a Civilian Conservation Corps in lieu of military service; an entire nation needs useful, good work to rebuild its soil, water, and forest treasures.
What we don't have - in spite of Dubya's blissful ignorance -is endless time to address the crises we have made for ourselves.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

12 comments

10 Jul 2003 @ 14:00
All About Adam - 16 Year Old BC Remote Healer
By Alexandra Gill
The Globe and Mail
7-9-3

VANCOUVER -- Adam doesn't seem extraordinary. Tall and handsome, with short, brown hair and a trace of dark fluff on his upper lip, he looks like a typical 16-year-old.

He's a sporty guy who plays basketball and snowboards. In his spare time, he lifts weights, listens to alternative rock music and hangs out with his girlfriend.

If you met Adam in a mall, you would never in a million years guess that this is the kid who claims to possess an extrasensory X-ray vision that helped him to cure rock 'n' roll legend Ronnie Hawkins of terminal pancreatic cancer.

"The most important thing for us is to protect his anonymity so he can enjoy life as a normal teenager," Adam's mom says when I meet him and his parents this week at a secret location in the suburbs of Vancouver.

Normal might be an odd adjective to use to describe a young man who says he can see a heart beating within a chest, or pop cancer cells inside people on the other side of the planet as effortlessly as most kids squeeze a pimple.

But other than his girlfriend, none of Adam's friends are aware of his supposed abilities. "I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible," says Adam, attacking a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a fork. "I'll come out when I finish high school."

He says he has healed more than 300 people from ailments that range from breast cancer to genital herpes during the past two years. He charges $75 per treatment, but he says he has never turned anyone away because of an inability to pay.

Most of his clients have heard of him by word of mouth. All contacts are made through his Web site Distant Healing and he no longer heals anyone in person. Because of an overwhelming response, he has recently decided to focus his efforts on people with terminal cancer that has not spread, and in situations when chemotherapy, radiation and surgery are not recommended.

The mysterious, self-professed distance healer has become a minor sensation this week, after Mr. Hawkins issued a press release to announce his recovery and sing Adam's praises. Adam's father, who administers the Web site, says he has had to turn down more than 100 requests in the past few days alone.

"I wish I could treat everyone, but I am only one person," says Adam, who is currently offering help to four cancer patients, and has a waiting list of 10. More >

Tuesday, July 8, 2003

Medical Pot Users Get Burnt

Nap As Good As Full Nights Sleep

8 Jul 2003 @ 17:54
[link]
By Dean Kuipers
LA CityBeat
July 2, 2003

John Ashcroft's all-out war on pot is creating a crisis among state's rights advocates and a backlash that includes even conservative Republicans.

Excerpt:

Since 2001, the Bush Administration – and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Drug Czar John Walters, and ex-DEA director Asa Hutchinson, in particular – have openly defied the sovereignty of California voters by raiding pot co-ops and making selective arrests of 30 medical pot users and growers. They have gone after the highest-profile individuals, including many who passed the original ballot initiative. Some have been sent up on federal prison sentences as long as 10 years. The Osburns were just such a catch: They had been the key organizers of Prop 215 support in Ventura County.

"This is their strategy, and I think it's backfiring," says Hilary McQuie of Americans for Safe Access, a pro-medical marijuana group. "Every one of these cases is demoralizing to the DEA, and builds up public sentiment against them."

This new crackdown, which has isolated the DEA from local cops and splintered local drug task forces across the state, has now made pot into a conservative issue. President Bush, who campaigned on a pro-state's rights agenda concerning potentially racist matters like flying the Confederate flag over the South Carolina statehouse, or local environmental control, has reversed himself and increased federal power in order to fight voter-approved marijuana. Medical pot is legal in some form in nine states, but only California activists have been the victims of the administration's moral agenda.

The state's rights implications of this assault have now greatly overshadowed Ashcroft's crowing about the need to prosecute the Drug War or fight terrorism. An unlikely coalition of staunch conservatives and outraged liberals have backed two new bills in Congress to address this conflict.

As Ventura County Sheriffs deputies stood aside, the DEA agents marched out to the Osburns' weedpatch and pulled up every plant. They did not draw their guns. They loaded up the huge stack of weed into their trucks and left. The Osburns weren't arrested, not even handcuffed. They were left with a choice: Go without their medicine, which they both use under prescription to treat chronic pain, or become criminals by buying on the black market.

"The Bush administration would like to have patients locked away in prison until they die of whatever disease their doctor recommended the marijuana for," says Lynn, his anger mounting. "They've never attacked Prop 215 or any of the laws from the eight other states. The Supreme Court hasn't overruled it. Instead, they've gone after patients. This is his so-called 'compassionate conservatism.'"

It would be over a year before any charges would be filed against the Osburns. But in the fall of 2002, they were busted again for growing 35 plants for medical use, and this time L.A.-based U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald threw the book at them, prosecuting for both raids. Their case goes to trial this fall, where a conviction could mean 40 years in prison, and possibly the forfeiture of their 60-acre ranch. More >

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Anti-Social Conduct May Be Linked To Diet

1 Jul 2003 @ 10:12
Nap As Good As Full Nights Sleep
BBC News
Monday, June 23, 2003

Grabbing an hour's sleep during the day may be as beneficial as a whole night in bed, according to scientists.

But the "power-nap" only works if the sleep is of the right quality, say the experts from Harvard University, US.

And experts say that a full night's sleep is still necessary for many vital body functions, even though a short sleep may boost learning and memory.

Many famous people have claimed that it is possible to get by on just a few hours' sleep a night.

Yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur sailed solo around the world while sleeping only occasionally and for very short periods.

However, there are plenty of others who say they cannot function properly without the full eight hours.

The Harvard research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, compared the learning and memory skills of two groups of people during a single day, and again the following morning.

One group was told not to sleep at all during the day, and, as expected, their performance tailed off into the afternoon and evening.

However, the other volunteers were allowed to have an hour or 90 minutes nap at 2pm.

The researchers tested the brainwaves of the "nappers" to check the quality of their sleep.

Dream state

They were looking for two different sleep phases -- slow wave sleep, and rapid eye movement, which is normally associated with dreaming.

Those whose sleep involved both phases fared significantly better than those who had no sleep when given the learning test later in the day.

Volunteers who never reached rapid eye movement sleep did not perform as well -- although even this "poor-quality" sleep did prevent some of the deterioration in performance.

Remarkably, over 24 hours, the performance of those who took a good-quality "power-nap" was as good as volunteers in previous studies who were tested after two full nights' sleep.

The researchers wrote: "From the perspective of behavioural improvement, a nap is as good as a night of sleep for learning on this perceptual task."

Dr Derk-jan Dijk, from the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey, said that there was increasing evidence that a combination of "short wave sleep" and REM sleep was important for learning and memory.

However, he added: "We should not conclude that we can do with just a nap.

"Sleep is useful for more things than just these particular tests.

"Other research has suggested that people given six hours of sleep a night over a sustained period find it extremely detrimental."

Monday, June 30, 2003