Reading The Crawl

I am amazed at the news that never passes the lips of the newscasters, but that makes the crawl. I know it sounds odd, but whether there is a large breasted blonde or a handsome dark-haired man delivering the news, my eyes are often on the crawl. I cannot count the number of times that the words, scrolling across the bottom of the screen mimic the words coming from the mouths of the "talent". The really bizarre thing is that inexplicably, some of the best (or worst) news never rises to the level of spoken word. Somehow in the infinitely wise judgement of the producers, it is quite acceptable to let the small percentage of readers in on some of the greatest secrets ever kept, as long as those who are interested in the heavily make-uped, moveable reflective surfaces pay no attention to those persnickety letters racing across the footer.

Yesterday, I was reading along and caught a snippet that surely warrants a serious bit of coverage, but in a flash it was gone, never to come around again. This happened again today and it left me wondering what gives? How do these tiny bits of real information make it onscreen in the first place if they are nearly immediately removed from the feed?

Today, I saw that the American Psychiatric Association deemed therapies intended to "cure gayness" as malpractice. Not that I place much stock in psychiatrists, I certainly wouldn't want one raising any child of mine, but the fact that the leader of the largest religiously-based "reprogramming" organization in the world (Exodus International) has admitted that no amount of prayer can change our "god-given" sexuality should be enough to convince even the staunchest anti-gay lobby that they are flying in the face of reality. This was one of those interesting tidbits that never passed the lips of the good-looking newscasters. Perhaps this is an attempt to sanitize the news for those who would be made to feel uncomfortable if they had to change their worldview, perhaps it is an innocent oversight.

I frequently lobby for higher levels of truth being made available for public consumption and seeing this sort of thing in print, if only briefly, is a start. In this case, however, we need to integrate a more humane discussion of this subject into our schools, homes, churches and indeed our government. This week we are seeing a flap in the U.S. House of Representatives because a majority of our representatives there want to extend the same protections from workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or status that we have for many other groups, but the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, will not call for a vote. The Senate has already passed the legislation and the President is ready to sign it into law, but the one guy who has the power to let the people be heard is holding up the show, presumably because his "morality" dictates that it be easy to remain bigoted and full of hate for a segment of the population that have exactly the same rights as everyone else, but who have been ostracized, made fun of, and shut out of many of the benefits that he himself has enjoyed as a citizen of our country. The truth is hard to determine exactly, but actions speak far louder than words and further inaction on this issue speak volumes about the character of this single and solitary man. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The second and perhaps more terrifying blurb that came through, again only once, is that Saudi Arabia has sent millions to Pakistan for ramping up that country's nuclear weapons manufacturing capacity. Those who stay up on U.S. policies regarding nuclear proliferation know that our leaders are currently in a tizzy about Iran's supposed pursuit of weapons-grade uranium, but any country that seriously took on this challenge was able to do so within three years. Our representatives to congress and the last several administrations have been spouting this bullshit for decades. Recognizing that one cannot prove a negative, it seems counter-intuitive that a nation, hell bent on getting "the bomb" would release with great fanfare, a year or so ago, that they were finally able to create medical grade isotopes, which by the way, are much easier and far less costly to refine.

I can't tell you what to think and I certainly don't want to lead you down a primrose path to ruin like so many seem to be doing in the media, but I can tell you that reading the crawl can yield a bit more fullness to your understanding of issues. They may not give you the full story, but they definitely can spark a line of inquiry that lets us begin the process of discovery. The media used to have the self-imposed job of creating an informed public, but in my short half century, it has turned more and more into entertainment. In my humble opinion, this is for the good of only the oligarchs. I will continue to speak truth to power and I appreciate the fact that so many people worldwide take the time to read my posts. I continue to study and pay attention and hope that you all do the same. Great change often comes in a flash and when enough people hear and understand that the great imbalance in power that the world is being subjected to cannot be sustained without catastrophic results, perhaps we will step away from he escalating demise of the planet and her people for the enrichment of an elite that has never known want, never thirsted for anything but the finest quality everything and who have no qualms about grinding the rest of us to dust under their oppression.

Demolishing the Edifices of Our Oppression

It is one thing to topple a single iconic structure, but our overseers have so completely wrapped us in the chains of servitude, breaking a single link will not be enough to slip free. Sport was initially invented by the Greeks to keep citizens out of politics and they are serving the same function more than six centuries later. Even with the recent growing awareness that repeated head injury leads to life-long disability, self-medication with drugs and alcohol and violent temper tantrums in brain damaged individuals that can lead to suicidal tendencies, many of the fans still want to watch the carnage that takes place on football fields across our country. Bringing reason and sensibility to the masses would be a mammoth task if we were to undertake it and one of the towering lies that are used to control us is that football gives "hope" to many underprivileged individuals who have no other route out of poverty. Other sports are equally hailed as a great thing for minorities and others who would normally be chewed up and spit out by our social order, but the tiny fraction of those who come out ahead in their sporting career is unbelievably minute.

Tackling this issue will take a sea change in our attitude toward our own children, valuing them and their brains appropriately. When I was in school, I had routine contact with football players and others players of a variety of sports. On the whole, they seemed normal enough, although the football players were slightly duller than most. Those who made sport their top priority always seemed delusional to me, especially those who were on the football team. If there are around thirty-five teams and forty-five players per team, that means 315 guys will eventually make some money when they finally make the ranks of professional play. Barring the illegal payments that flow to collegiate athletes, which I do not overlook completely, but which only serve to reward and model rule breaking as ethos, guaranteeing that the players who come out of collegiate sport are schooled in how to break rules and get away with it. In my state alone there are more than 315 high schools preaching to their athletes that if they work hard, hit hard and destroy the team on the other side of the ball, that they could be in for some big money when they make it to the NFL at the very least, if they work hard, play harder break whatever rules they can get away with and vanquish their "foes", that some college will at least give them a full ride scholarship. It is also a well-known fact that many of the colleges make "special payments" that can range into the tens of thousands of dollars per year to select athletes who hold promise as much needed young blood for their programs.

I apologize for going so far down this single path, but the sentiment extends to many areas deeply embedded in our culture. If you speak of these things to many in our culture, they screw up their faces as if you are a nut. Why would any of this matter? Why would the game be any less entertaining? Like the games in the Colosseum, many people wonder, if we eliminate this entertainment, what would we do instead? Many fans are completely happy using these events as an excuse to drink too much, snack for three hours straight and opt out of participation in meaningful discussion of any type. Just for fun, I once watched an NFL game with the VCR (video cassette recorder) set to record. Each time the ball was snapped I allowed the machine to record and each time the whistle blew, I paused the device. once the recording was made, the entire game, resembled rugby but only lasted a matter of minutes. Supposedly, the game is supposed to be an hour long and fans always argue this point, but what they neglect to realize is that the clock ticks away at several times that the players are not playing. The fact remains that it only takes a microsecond to permanently damage a brain.

In addition to the sporting world, we have agents that do nothing but police the population, looking for trouble skews their perspective radically. Imagine having to deal with criminals and criminality all day long every day. I know that I would be turned into a grumpy, self-righteous and aggressive bully if I were to go into this profession. Imagine the reality that exists in a sub-culture that can do no wrong, is always supported by the brotherhood of fellow officers and that "knows" where to look for illegal behavior. Much has been written about the fact that three times as many black men are incarcerated for drug crimes as white men, even though the use characteristic for the two groups is nearly identical. Boatloads of ink have been spilled documenting the fact that white collar criminals often get off scot-free while their blue collar cohorts pay the full price of their indiscretions. In my state we have an attorney general who condones illegal behavior as long as it takes place in the halls of power, is perpetrated by campaign donors and whose victims are the general public, so that everyone pays the price while his buddies come out ahead. Ultimately policing the masses and prosecuting them falls to those who feel that they are better suited to make decisions about the lives of others than they are themselves.

Many of these same complexes are at work amongst our doctors. After all, we would not be coming to them for help if we could manage our lives appropriately on out own. Several of my relatives have worked in the hospital and they all have mentioned  that no one dies on the operating table. If there is a cadaver that is in that particular room, they are quickly wheeled into the recovery room before being pronounced dead. This assures that the doctor keeps his record clean. Likewise, in the maternity wards, every intervention possible is made as quickly as possible, even though the fact is that a single procedure increases the likelihood of an array of further obstacles and impediments to the natural outcome. In court, if it ever gets to court, the doctors can say, "We did everything possible." In one of my former lives, I was a childbirth educator. The heap of lies that the whole medical establishment uses to exert power over us is understandable, but certainly not warranted. Tuning in to natural processes, or ultimately understanding them requires the opposite of what most scientific endeavors are seeking to do. Science slices and dices things into their component parts, examining each in turn, trying to understand the whole through close inspection of dislocated parts. In the realm of biology, we can plainly see that sliced and diced life cannot be reconstituted.

A very telling result of medical intervention is the almost instant visceral reaction that doctors have against what they call anecdotal studies. Anyone encouraging a different approach that has been successful can be written off completely and instantly by the use of this powerful word. However, if a patient of theirs takes a medication for their heart and by chance their acne clears up after starting treatment, they will often take that as proof that the drug works for acne. If they see a relationship, it has to be true, but if someone else has had luck using a specific treatment for a specific malady for years, it is still considered anecdotal.

We have similar issues in the ivory towers of our educational institutions, the social service agencies and the news media. Taking them on one at a time cannot wrest power from those who limit our freedoms or micromanage the laws which govern us. All of them must be taken down simultaneously. Luckily, there are young people coming up, who know more than the old farts who grew up on a steady diet of hatred and misunderstanding. We must educate one another on these points or we run the risk of losing even more freedoms to those who seek to oppress us. Giving more and more of our autonomy away in the hopes of becoming safer can only lead to constraint of options that are necessary to adapt to changing conditions.

I would like to know what people from around the world think about these issues, please comment.

Since discovering how to make my own char, I am now liberated from buying charcoal. I built a retort in which to bake wood without oxygen. My superior product to what is sold in most markets also yields a soil enhancement for the garden at extremely low cost. Biochar provides fourteen acres (5.66 ha) of surface area for each handful added to the soil.

U.S. Medical Research Tops 100 Billion/year

It may not seem like much, but imagine what could be done with an extra dollar per day multiplied by every single man, woman and child across our great nation. The biggest fallacy in this funding storm is that we will learn something important for all of these dollars. I have personally designed and carried out research that led to important discoveries, but they languished, were never published and never was funding available to allow full-time commitment to studying the important information that had implications for health, welfare and quality of life issues that will be with us for generations. If I could have tailored my research to support the multinational drug companies, or showcased the beneficial impacts of corporate greed or deception, I might have made a career of continuing research. The problem, for me, was that in seeking truth, I ran headlong into the teeth of the corporate welfare machine. Researchers who attempt to take the high road are both scoffed at and most often never funded.

In the cases that I studied, I neglected to think through who might pay for the sort of information that I gathered. If I had done so, I would have understood that my lines of inquiry posed a threat to current beliefs and understanding that command our attention and circumscribe our imagination. Great fortunes and careers can be made if researchers tailor their lines of questioning, as well as the answers they seek to the predominant approach to "science, medicine, and health" that are currently serving the ultra-wealthy. Any attempt to redefine our concept of health, (physical, mental, emotional or spiritual) welfare, security, physical reality or our relationship with the planet will not receive the attention they deserve and those who wish to carry our research on ways to live better at lower cost are deemed subversives and their research never sees the light of day. If the rich and powerful corporate welfare recipients cannot make even more money, they will have none of the truth that comes out from even the most cursory investigation. however, if there is a proprietary "cure", a silver bullet shrouded in side-effects or a patentable device, they will pour as much money as necessary into the investigation just to "make sure" that it works.

Ideas as simple as food is medicine and medicine is food cannot find a funding source because there is no money to be made by corporados on carrots, broccoli or cabbage. The lion's share of these research dollars flow to places one might expect. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, you know them, the poster children for medical research. If those who produce the commercials can find a soft spot in our armor, they can begin their work, getting us to donate to their "cause". Frequently, we see the results of our hyper concern, but the underlying truth is covered up as surely as the causes of our maladies. The Livestrong campaign, as many know, used Lance Armstrong as their organization's "face". What better person to put on your anti-cancer campaign but a survivor of testicular cancer. Old one nut was dropped as the spokesperson for their campaign after his doping fiasco came to a head last year. Lance finally admitted that he did take both banned substances (which can be carcinogenic) as well as using blood doping to win the Tour de France repeatedly. The part that the news spent the least amount of time on, however, was the fact that the Livestrong campaign spend less than five cents of every dollar they raise on cancer research and aid to those who have the disease. The elaborate heart-string pulling ads, the cute yellow bracelets and the multi-million dollar ad campaign primarily funds the PR folks, the kickbacks to sponsors, the corporate welfare whores who are the primary culprits poisoning the world. The research that shows plainly the rise in cancers and the collateral increase in carcinogenic materials in our environment are blackballed before they ever see the light of day.

Learning to ask the right questions can take a lifetime and I certainly am not the best authority on this topic, but the trends seem to be far to clear for us to ignore. The rapidly escalating occurrence of gluten intolerance, allergies of all types and mental disorders stem from a common source, but research that threatens the status quo will never make it to the trade journals, never be "taken seriously" by the monied classes and even if we were to do the hard work of proving the fallacies of business as usual, there would never be enough political will to go against those who are the major funding sources of either the research or the political campaigns of our leaders. Even benevolent and compassionate folks who seek to improve the quality of life for others buy into the failed systems of ecological destruction, scientific mayhem and dislocation that flows from the tendrils of corporate greed machines. This is why the first green revolution failed. This is why missionaries nearly always fail. This is why unequal distribution of wealth gets increasingly worse, never allocating resources fairly, never assuring that quality of life increases are not tied to ecological destruction. The way we attack problems has not changed, so expecting outcomes to change by doing more of the same is tantamount to building castles in the sand. Basing our way of life upon lies can never lead us to a better place. Confronting truth, even when it is uncomfortable is the only way forward.

My entire health-care budget is barely a dollar per day. I buy and grow my own herbs, visit a chiropractor occasionally and do my best to avoid breathing, drinking or eating anything that causes negative health impacts. I occasionally have to look at what others put in their grocery carts, what they choose to do for a living and the activities that they deem to be "fun" and wonder why more people are not dying off more quickly. Approximately 85% of what is sold at most grocery stores is what I consider to be non-food items. Pure salt, pure sugar, (or a combination of both) processed with a long list of questionable or dangerous additives, etc. The research that we all need so desperately is not the stuff that giant corporations and institutions are willing to fund, quite the opposite, it is what they are unwilling to see, unwilling to admit and vehemently opposed to seeing. I know a handful of people who grew up near or had parents who worked at the nuclear generating stations along Lake Michigan's shore. They are all battling thyroid conditions and several have had cancers, but none of them think that the radiation had anything to do with their conditions. Research into these sorts of toxic hot spots would reveal much, but the cost to industry of this sort of truth could be their undoing. I'm sure that they would have us know that there will be none of that!

Fear Is Not A Family Value

Homo sapiens need a wake up call. Our hearts and minds have been heavily armored and who can blame us. The news programs and networks, that have proliferated and the "reality" television shows show us the most awful images and posit the most fearful views of life for us ad nauseum. We have been terrorized by the media for so long that it seems almost naive to trust, believe in, or count on anyone else. Other than our religious and political leaders, who have the most to gain from lying to us, we can include commercial interests, murderers, thieves, crazy people and sexual predators to the list of people who may be lurking around every corner. We have been led to fear nearly every bite of food that enters our bodies and every fluid that exudes from us as well. We now are beginning to understand that our water may be dangerous, the air definitely is and the very ground that we walk upon is "filled" with bacteria and fungus that might kill us if we have contact with it.

This morning, on a local news program, I learned that a local municipality is embarking on a program that will cut down hundreds of ash trees on city property to prevent them from being killed by the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect that only feeds upon these wonderful shade trees. The fear of what might happen is being allowed to dictate to us how we will act, what we will do and how we think about our relationship to the world around us. Similar issues are played out daily in operating rooms across the US. There are probably few of us by now that have not heard of women being told that by having a mastectomy, or hysterectomy, they may be able to outlive their genetic "predisposition" to die from cancer, or that exposing their breasts to radiation might just save their lives. Fear is probably the most profitable industry to be in at present, although we are on the whole healthier and more secure than at any time in our history.

Before you let your mind wander down the slippery slope of what you have been told, we are actually living in the least violent time in history. that being said, we are all going to die. If we live long enough, it is almost certain that we will pray for a quick and painless death, but fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, doctors will almost certainly try every trick that they have up their sleeve to extend your life, expend more and prolong your life as long as possible. Feeling that heroic measures that allow people to suffer just a few months or years longer is worth their effort. It has been over a year since my father passed away, so I'm not just saying so because I am filled with grief. after his second, and third heart surgery, the effort to rehabilitate himself was extremely painful and no amount of schedule one narcotics could touch his pain. Luckily, when he was driving under the influence of these drugs, he did not kill anyone. I'm sure that it was mostly because of quick thinking and rapid action on the part of those who saw him coming in the nick of time. The last time I rode in a car with him, he nearly took out three other cars within about a mile.

The things that we really should be spending time in fear of often go unnoticed.I have shared with many people my feeling that the true terrorists in our midst are the millions of drivers who continue to use their cell phones in the car. these people just don't know when they are going to kill. doctors too fit into that category as well because iatrogenic (doctor caused) deaths, from prescribed medications are approximately equivalent to all deaths in car accidents in our country. Some sources have documented the fact that they are even a greater number. If we are to trust one another, we need to be acting in a trustworthy manner. The almost universal rejection of responsibility in our culture has fascinated me for the better part of half a century. In the last few weeks I have been reminding myself of the fact that when we point at others, there are three fingers pointing back at us. We are encouraged to fear by the powerful interests who wish to divide us and keep us isolated amongst our neighbors.

When we investigate most of the subjects that get covered by the popular press, we find that the causes and effects of these events are frequently left out of the coverage. The heroic actions of those who exhibit bravery or courage are usually not covered, nor are the actions of those who quietly persevere. These activities, quite often, don't photograph well or take place behind the scenes. My contention is that these actions and activities are far more common than we ever realize. Living is not a series of investments in insurance, or installing locks on everything that we value, nor is it the blocking out of all that threatens our way of life or ideas. In fact, the happiest people on Earth spend the least time on these sorts of activities. I have always wanted to be a preacher of sorts, but the reason is pretty much the opposite of any preachers that you might have heard speak before. I openly admit that I cannot tell you what to do. I'm not even sure that what I might say is right and i certainly don't want anyone to take any action in my name or in the "name" of the Lord or Lady, but rather because it is coming from your heart. I often write about the fictions that our minds spin for us into the illusion of truth. The ego is adept at lying to us and the weak of heart often subvert their true selves for the edification of their own deceitful egos. I am not who I think I am. Neither are you. The threats to your health and well being that you believe in do more to take you away from living your bliss than you may ever know. I apologize to those of you who may understand this already, but what speaker can resist the urge to preach to the choir from time to time.

Living our lives requires that we accept some risk. The more we hide behind layers of fear, the less we are able to see and understand the world as it truly is. There are many who reap the benefits of us shuttering our windows, living with our heads in the sand and turning our backs on those in need. We all have the power to live heroic lives, lives of infinite abundance and lives that recognize the fact that each and every human being is entitled to a life of love and realization. If each one teaches one, the process of growing into the people we want to be, rather than victims becomes much easier. We need to let go of fear if we are to have the power of love flow through us. The values that came down to us from our parents and theirs have been assaulted, attacked and undermined by the media for the better part of two generations. The threats that we face today are straw men, fabricated and propped up by those who want us to leave the churches, our government, the financial institutions and the schools available for their use as tools of oppression and they also want us to relinquish the airwaves to be used as an insidious tool for spreading fear. If we allow them to sell us a bill of goods that states that our children, their mothers, the elderly, teachers, gays, unions, pot smokers, liberals and conservatives are "the problem", then we will be sufficiently afraid of everyone and everything and we will be unable to do the things we need to do to break free of these mental shackles. We are always left to make one decision either from the depths of our hearts, or from our own tiny ego. Will we lead lives of quiet desperation or will we rise to the challenge that faces us today? I am willing to stick my neck out. Please look into how you might follow your own bliss and let me know what you find.

The Very Good Witch

Back in the late Eighties, I was suffering from acute heavy metal poisoning. I developed what the doctors called strep throat, but whatever it really was, it was resistant to several antibiotics. Even after a 28 day course of one of the drugs they prescribed, my skin was green, I was bedridden, delirious and my death drive was beginning to overcome my will to live. Sick is way too mild a word for what was going on within me. Luckily I was living with a most beautiful lady, who even more luckily was a witch.

She used a pendulum to diagnose my condition and asked the tiny dangling mass to guide her to a remedy for what ailed me. If you have never seen a pendulum react to unseen forces, you may not believe that it is possible, but it guided her to look in the cupboard. I remember going through the kitchen shelf by shelf until she got to the spice cabinet. Then, the shelf that held a certain bottle, then the bottle itself and she produced a container of cream of tartar. It took quite a while to go through this process, but eventually she stated that I needed two and a half tablespoons, then two more before midnight. She said that in the morning I would need another tablespoon and a half, one tablespoon at lunch, and a half tablespoon at supper time.

For those unfamiliar with strep throat, getting a terrible tasting powder past your swollen gland can be difficult, but after researching what the stuff was in my college dictionary, I decided to try her prescription. By bedtime, my color had improved, by lunch, I was able to get around the house a bit and by supper my glands were reduced in size enough that I could eat solid food again. I think everyone should develop a relationship with a very good witch. It could save your life some day. I know it has saved mine, at least once.