No Panic Here

A lot of experience has taught me that when it comes to the so-called "news," the stuff that seems to get people in some kind of uproar, be it outrage, morbid curiosity, or panic, is usually a distraction.

Take the Ebola thing.

I've read comments at various sites regarding the people in Dallas who have had relatively close contact with the victims, how the vomit was handled, etc.  A lot of the comments reflect fear and panic.  While a healthy respect for danger is a good thing, panic never accomplishes anything, and sometimes it just gets you dead more quickly.  Experienced pilots know this.  Survivalists know this.

The equatorial and tropical regions of Africa are not known for education or intelligence.  This has nothing to do with bigotry, it's just fact.  Just as you are not likely to find to many people with I.Q.s over 65 in most trailer parks in the U.S., even if you only surveyed people with lily white skin.

Viruses and bacteria are very different biologically, but there are certain things that microscopic biological entities share, at least in the category of those that threaten human life.  They tend to be susceptible to at least three things:  Ultra-Violet light (Sunshine), Ozone (a very reactive triplet oxygen molecule), and extreme ranges of Ph (alkaline or acid).

I've spent more than a couple of decades being an amateur practitioner of holistic and natural medicine.  Not quackery or old wives tales, but the stuff of double-blind studies, real science, and understanding how and why biological systems work at the microscopic level.

So, before I began to wonder if I should run around screaming like Chicken Little, I thought it might be a good idea to scrounge around for some solid facts and study the situation.  First, I wanted to know how fast or slow this "epidemic" was moving along.  So I looked at a few timelines.  Here is just one timeline you can look at.  Combined with what we can know about the lifestyles of the people involved, the timeline tells me Ebola just plain doesn't move that fast because it just isn't all that robust. 

The fact that it has an incubation period of between 2 and 21 days tells me that an individual's immune system is a huge determining factor on the infection and possible mortality rate.  That and about a dozen other facts by this doctor are enough for me to know that this Ebola "outbreak" is nothing for me to get all gunched up over.  Read the whole article carefully.

I am a hundred thousand times more afraid of having an immunization shot forced on me, than I would be at finding out there are 50 cases of Ebola in the state where I live. 

Take a look at this table of causes of death  to help you put this Ebola scare into perspective.


Then if you want some really interesting information on Ebola, take the time to search through related articles at Jon Rappaport's site.

Free Market Realities

Anyone who's read more than a few posts at this tiny little blog is probably pretty sure I'm a stark raving conservative.  Oh hell, just run down the sidebar.  You don't even have to actually read a post.

So, you might think that I would sympathize with the owner (or former owner?) of a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, from whence the picture below comes.

Many thanks for this reference to Maggie's Farm.

Well, I have no sympathy whatsoever for James Chu.  He chose to fight the free-market, and thus his customers and he lost.  And that's the way it should be.

When I had my own home repair and remodeling business, I knew never to tell a customer that they were wrong for wanting anything that was a matter of aesthetics or style or taste.  Outside of anything that was absolutely necessary to get the job done correctly, anything in the variable or optional range was purely at the discretion of the customer.

It's been no secret that over about the last fifteen years, people all over the world have been waking up to the fact that MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) is both an excitotoxin and neurotoxin.  You may not be convinced, and James Chu might not be convinced, but there is enough research and evidence available that myself and millions of others know that we don't need the risk.  As for the gluten, we aren't talking about the gluten that naturally occurs in the plain old wheat or other grains that our grandparents thrived on.  Today a lot of the cheap commercial wheat flour, sold in 25 to 50 lb. bags to restaurants and bakeries, is genetically modified (probably Monsanto patented) to contain double or triple the amount of gluten, but not natural gluten. They did that to make bread have that great chewy texture with only about a third of the kneading time and resting time that is required for regular bread production, thus cutting production time and increasing profits.

No, I'm not against profits.  Not at all.  If you can find a way to increase your profits, good on ya, mate.  But the consumer has (or should ALWAYS have) the right to decide if your resulting product is something they want to consume, and they should have all the information to make that decision.  If you want to eat all the foods that are processed and genetically modified and have cellulose fillers from pine trees and laugh at me for not wanting to put that stuff in my body, . . . well,  KNOCK YOURSELF OUT!

 I'd never heard such a thing as a gluten allergy until about ten years ago.  Today, I think about 1 in 10 people I meet has a gluten allergy that became so severe that it drove them to the endocrinologist to find out what was making them so ill.

If James Chu wanted to not only stay in business but even thrive, he should have listened to the customers and provided what they wanted. 

I'm living in a rural area of Kentucky right now.  In this whole city where I am, there is one little health food store.  It's in a great location in the biggest shopping district.  The population here is about 20,000 in the city limits, within a 6 mile radius of the shopping district, about 35,000 people.  This little health food store is barely hanging on.  Why?  Because this is rural Kentucky.  People still smoke in some of the little Mom & Pop establishments.  There's an empty business space on main street that used to be a gym.  There's another one on an adjacent street that used to be a yoga place.
There is not a synagogue within 100 miles of here.

How long would I survive as a businessman if I opened up a Kosher Deli here?  These people have never heard of knishes or falafel or gefilte fish, let alone would they try it.  How stupid would I be to blame the people who live here for not wanting to buy stuff they don't want to eat?  I would be outraged if anyone blamed me for the local Waffle House closing down because I don't want to eat at a place that cooks pork and eggs and potatoes all on the same grill surface.

James Chu is like a guy who is angry because he decided to sell computers that use 3.5" floppies and only have 586 mb of RAM and he's pissed off because nobody is buying. I once lived in an area of Atlanta where a small Mom & Pop Pizza place opened up.  They quickly discovered that the immediate neighborhoods were full of both Jewish and Muslim families.  They made their establishment completely kosher, or halal if you will.  They made sure they had no pork or shellfish products and they advertised it on their menus, takeout and delivery.  The Domino's and Papa John's places within 10 blocks couldn't match the Mom & Pop's place combined.  That's the beauty of competition.

Notice what the wording of the sign reveals:  "We're closed because of you customers."   He revealed that he didn't think of them as his customers.  That's getting off on the wrong foot right from the get-go.  James Chu failed the reality test of natural selection in free market economics.  Phony conservatives, or what some might call "Neocons," might support James Chu, but I'm a real conservative.  I believe in free choice for everyone.  For James Chu and people who might have wanted to be his customers.

That also means that no money taken from taxpayers should ever be used to subsidize any business.  None, whatsoever.  Not dairies. Not soybean farmers. Not peanut farmers.  Not oil companies. Not chemical companies. Nobody. Ever.  There should be no FDA or USDA or any of these agencies who rubber stamp toxic crap so the gullible public can say, "It must be safe, the FDA approved it."
Check out the stories on Youtube just on aspartame, (NutraSweet).

Freedom means taking responsibility for your own life and health.  Do your homework. Otherwise don't bitch when you end up sick, with Alziemers, or multiple sclerosis, or Parkinson's or Fibro-myalgia or a dozen other conditions that were never heard of a 100 years ago.  Sorry, went a little off topic.  I'll stop here.

Shalom and Shanah Tovah

Rights? Not According To The FDA

If you somehow thought that you lived in a free country (meaning the United States of America), you've got another thing coming.  The Federal Food and Drug Administration would like to disabuse you of the notion that you can decide what food you would like to ingest.

And doesn't it seem ironic when the "progressives" of the Democrat party tell everyone that there is a right to medical care while at the same time the FDA is saying, "there is no generalized right to bodily and physical health."   Somebody got some 'splainin' to do.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/031934_FDA_food_freedom.html#ixzz1JGgweONY
That's right.  The bureaucrats at the FDA think that all that stuff in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution about the purpose of government being about protecting the God-given rights of the people is really just a bunch of crap.  They are your superiors and they'll tell you what you can eat.

Don't believe it?  Go read this article.  If you can find any evidence that it's a hoax, let me know.  Make sure you read the contents of Senate bill 510 that passed earlier this year as well.

Isn't that the kind of "Hope and Change" you can believe in?

So Sorrel

Back on the subject of herbal medicine . . .

For whatever reason, (our ancestors called it providence) I would pick this stuff as a little kid and eat it. I liked the tangy flavor.  Pretty amazing that I didn't accidentally kill myself by tasting different plants.  But again, that providence thing.  I have eaten stuff that made me sick, but didn't kill me.  In case you were wondering, daffodils are a powerful emetic. I learned that the hard way when I was 10. Ahhh, digression. But hey, this is my blog, not a Tolstoy novel.

Sheep sorrel in pot with acidic mulch

This little herb that I like so much is considered a nuisance weed by many.  Most people haven't got a clue what it is. To them, it's like crabgrass. This is called Sheep Sorrel.  Not to be confused with common sorrel or plain sorrel.  In reality, it's one of the most powerful medicinal herbs around. So much so, that it is one of the main ingredients in the Essiac® herbal tea treatment for cancer, even up to stage IV ("make sure your will is updated"). Burdock is another main ingredient and I'm pretty sure we have that around here and I will blog on that later.

Sheep sorrel, Rumex acetocella, is delicious in salads, but I even like it by itself.  Here is an excerpt from a website that sells the bulk Essiac tea:

Sheep sorrel is a rich source of oxalic acid, sodium, potassium, iron, manganese, phosphorous, beta-carotene, and vitamin C. The combination of these vitamins and minerals promote the glandular health of the entire body. Sheep Sorrell also contains carotenoids and chlorophyll, as well as citric, malic, and tannic and tartaric acids. 

The chlorophyll can serve many functions in the body. For one, it carries oxygen throughout the bloodstream. This is significant because cancer cells cannot live in the presence of oxygen. Chlorophyll closely resembles hemoglobin in its functioning: both are capable of carrying oxygen to every cell of the organism. When chlorophyll molecules carry oxygen through the bloodstream chromosome damage can be inhibited to effectively block cancer. Chlorophyll also helps block germs and harmful bacteria.

Single Sheep Sorrel leaf

Most of the other sites that I checked out say most of the same stuff. That first ingredient; oxalic acid, is what gives the sheep sorrel its distinctive tanginess, and it is also what gives it its one side-effect; diarrrhea.  BUT, and this is a big BUT, you would have to eat something like a couple of quarts of this stuff to get that effect, unless you have some parasite or other digestive ailment that reacts immediately to all this healthy stuff.  This tends to be true about a lot of things.  The FDA and other idiotic and unnecessary agencies are fond of telling the world that good things can be toxic if you take it in quantities that it would take a herd of cows to eat in a day  in high doses.  Don't get me started on the FDA.  Worse yet, don't get me started on people who think we should even have an FDA. Grrrrr!!

The point I want to make here is: Why wait until cancer begins developing in your body before you change your eating habits?  And no, I'm not talking about eating like you live in a primitive country or giving up all your favorite things, but when I think of the average diet of most Americans, I shudder.  And don't get me wrong, I eat things that other health nuts wouldn't touch, primarily chicken, beef and fish.  But Twyla and I do eat kosher.  Certainly no pork or other animals not considered clean by Torah standards. I used to.  And I thought that giving up shrimp and lobster and oysters was going to be very hard, but guess what?  Not really.  Since I began eating kosher, I haven't had a cold, or any digestive stress or constipation.  I feel so much better.  Imagine that.  The creator of the universe actually knew what he was talking about when he told us what to eat and what not to eat.  For those of you Christians who think that Torah dietary laws are no longer valid, you need to go read Matthew 5:17-20, and then Acts 21:20-24, and those are just for starters.

Anyway, this is another herb in the long list that I will continue posting on.  See the archives in the right hand column to find my past posting on ginger.  If there's an herb you'd like for me to research and post on, leave a comment below.

B'rakhot Adonai,   Moshe