Saturday, May 30, 2009

A recent medical study revealed that compression stockings worn for the prevention of deep vein thrombosis don’t work. Deep vein thrombosis in the legs leads to clots that dislodge and find their way to the lung resulting in pulmonary embolism and possible death. For years, hospitalized patients who are confined to bed for any length of time have been required to wear the compression stockings to prevent leg clots. Now we learn they are ineffective and all this prevention has been for nothing. Another standard medical practice has been sent to the graveyard. The graveyard is becoming filled with many medical procedures and treatments once regarded as the gold standard.

This week the news contained a warning about the common pain killer acetaminophen. This is the main ingredient in the popular drug Tylenol. This over-the-counter drug is the most common cause of liver failure in the United States and is especially bad if combined with alcohol. It accounts for over 30% of the cases of liver failure in the US. A few years ago seven people in the Chicago area died from Tylenol that had been laced with cyanide. This crime was never solved but led to all medications being made tamper proof with bottles that could only be opened by a gorilla, a professional football player with an ax or a baby. The pills are now coated so that they are impenetrable until reaching the caustic acids of the stomach. As it turns out, Tylenol is a pretty effective killer without the cyanide.

Also, this week we found out that Colas are bad for our muscles. The consumption of large quantities of cola can produce a low blood potassium level and produce muscle pains and even paralysis. The couple of cases that were reported involved folks who had consumed about 5 liters of the stuff a day. All I can say is that if they drank that much they deserve to die.

There is nothing safe for us anymore and we don’t know who to believe about medical issues. I’m even afraid of the water. The water in Waco is so bad I get sick just smelling the stuff. One of my great pleasures in life is to have a small glass of Dr. Pepper on the porch from time to time. If I have to give this up, life will be pretty miserable. I have been thinking that my muscle pains were due to age, now it may turn out to be the Dr. Pepper and I can’t even take Tylenol to help. This is worse news than the economy. The next thing I will probably hear is that the government will be putting an extra tax on Dr. Pepper, like cigarettes, because the doctors think it’s bad for you.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Today, the AMA News and several other news sources reported on a study that reveals the hazards of text messaging in teenagers. The study revealed that teenagers who text a lot are subject to all sorts of psychological problems including; anxiety. sleep-disorders and a host of other psychological maladies. This report caused me a lot of concern for my own grandkids. I have chalked it up to just a phase in their life as they try to find themselves and seek acceptance among their peers. This is nothing new, in years past we had other things like talking on the phone and chat rooms on the computer. In the distant past they even used things like letters and the completely written word. Those old times were when we still had books with complete sentences and a time when people still enjoyed each others company by visiting on the porch.

The worst thing about text messaging, to me, is the rudeness displayed when the person seems to have total disregard for their surroundings and other people as they thumb around on the little keyboard. They are oblivious to those around them and to the important events occurring right before their eyes that are focused on a tiny screen. In a recent movie. Gran Torino, the character played by Clint Eastwood summed it up with the disgust he displayed as his granddaughter was texting at her grandmothers funeral. That movie scene said it all.

I suspect that text messaging is not a lot worse than blog writing. It’s an escape from the insane world in which we live. It’s a way to put down your thoughts and record your opinions for those interested enough to read them. Mostly, it’s just a way to vent and is better than bashing your head against the wall or walking around mad at the world all the time.

I might even try text messaging but I don’t have enough friends who want to communicate that way. I should be good at it since I’m all thumbs. For now, facebook is enough for me and the blog allows me to speak to a faceless world.

I don’t do any blog writing on the porch. That is a sacred place that is primarily reserved for the old fashion human face-to-face communication and also for just mediating and reading things called books.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Charlatans and alternative medicine are still a big part of medical practice. When conventional therapies are no longer effective and life is threatened, people resort to almost anything offered as a lifeline. In the news this week is the story about a mother in Minnesota who is defying a court order for her son to get chemotherapy and radiation for his Hodgkins Disease. They are on the run from the law and have probably fled the country. She says she doesn’t want poisons put into his body, but instead is going to get herbs, vitamins and prayer for his treatment. Hodgkins is a highly curable cancer. He has a 95% chance of dying without treatment and a greater than 90% chance for cure with treatment.

The movie actress Farrah Fawcett has cancer of the anus with metastasis to the liver. A couple of years ago she refused the surgery, which would require a colostomy, and offered the greatest chance for cure. Now that she has advanced disease she is off to Europe to seek unconventional and alternative treatments that will almost certainly be of no avail.

Medicine has always had plenty of wonder cures and alternative therapies. They were very popular at the turn of the 20th century but are still with us today. The most notorious of the charlatans was John R. Brinkley, also know as the goat doctor. He implanted testicles of the goat into men who were impotent or seeking enhancement of their libido. A more reputable and highly successful doctor, who had some pretty good ideas, was Dr. John Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan. He invented corn flakes and peanut butter and was the founder of the great cereal company. He started with a Sanitarium where people checked in to rid their bodies of toxins. Dr. Kellogg was convinced that toxins were the cause of most of our problems and eating meat was the main culprit. The patients were placed on a strict vegetarian diet and given five enemas a day. The enemas consisted of yogart that was used to reestablish the normal bacterial flora in the colon.

We laugh at some of the old treatments and remedies but my grandchildren will be getting a kick out of some of the ridiculous things done today in the name of science.

As I sit on the porch, I keep an eye out for a rare white deer that I would definitely kill. These deer usually have a bezoar or stone in their stomach called a madstone. This stone has all sorts of healing powers and I would give anything to have one.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Last week my spouse and I spent a couple of days in Dallas and soaked up a little culture. We have a friend who is a docent in the Meadows Museum at SMU and is an expert on art history. She gave us a personal tour of an exhibit at the museum featuring the tombs and temples of the Etruscans. The Etruscans lived in northern Italy before the Romans and were an advanced civilization. They made many things from bronze and made all sorts of pottery, jewelry, weapons and utensils. They even invented the safety pin. They made elaborate statuary and sarcophagi, which depicted their culture and beliefs. Most of the things were recovered from their tombs that have been excavated from under the rolling hills of northern Italy. These folks were obsessed with death and the afterlife. Their main form of burial was cremation but latter resorted to mummification when they perfected this art. The Etruscans were finally assimilated into the Roman Empire and helped establish Rome. They were also greatly influenced by the Greeks and were a very artistic and sophisticated civilization. They put my ancestors to shame who were hillbillies and rednecks up until recent times. I’m still trying to shed the hillbilly image and that’s one of the reasons I go to art museums and places like that.

We then visited the King Tut Exhibit that was a little like going to Disney World. The crowds were enormous. It will be a miracle if I don’t get the swine flu from all the exposure. The exhibit was at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. It’s like entering the tomb of a pharaoh with a huge crowd. Visitors move and shove each other from one display case to another with a little audio listening device that explains everything. The Egyptian Pharaohs lived to die. They were totally obsessed with the afterlife. They filled their tombs with everything imaginable to accompany them on their journey to the afterlife. They even had boats to carry them on their journey down the Nile to eternity. The tombs contained many statues, games for entertainment, weapons and everything that might be needed to make them comfortable and completely satisfied in the afterlife. Most of the objects in the tombs were either covered or made of gold. The Egyptians had mastered the art of mummification. The mummies faces were covered with a gold mask. Their organs were removed and placed in miniature gold canopic coffins. The problem is that grave robbers found the burial sites and carried away most of the valuables. Archeologists have now removed the rest and are sending it around the world for exhibits that make a ton of money for someone.

We haven’t changed much since the time of the Etruscans or Egyptians. We are still obsessed with the afterlife. It dominates our religious experience and occupies our mind, more and more, as we age. As for me, I’m looking for a big hole to bury the porch that will contain my remains. I have just about everything I need for the afterlife at my fingertips on the porch. The TV reception may not be so good but at least I have my books. Who knows, the deer will probably follow me right into the hole.

Monday, May 11, 2009

The great-grandson of Sitting Bull recently visited our town and I was able to hear him speak and visited with him a bit after his talk. Sitting Bull is the famous Indian Chief who defeated General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. He later performed with Bill Cody and then was finally killed by American soldiers.

The great-grandson told us about his tribe of people called the Lakota who are part of the Sioux Nation. They live in Montana and the Dakotas. He told us that his people had no written history and that oral history was very important to them. He listened to stories his mother and grandmother told him about Sitting Bull and the rest of the Sioux. He has now written a book about his people. The oral history doesn’t work for our culture. For us to pass on a message it has to be in the form of a text message and in some abbreviated language. Even the book is disappearing from modern American culture and the newspapers and other forms of the printed work are rapidly vanishing. The historians of the future aren’t going to have an archive of written material to tell our story. That is probably just as well because the news is so bad. The electronic devices change so rapidly the historians of the future will have no means of retrieving the messages left by our youth.

He also told us that his people really weren’t savages as depicted in our history books and in the movies. He said that they were the original green people and protectors of the environment and nature. The US Government and the white man kept impinging on their land and hunting grounds until they had no choice but to retaliate and fight. I suspect that if we talked to the Crow Indians they might have a different story about the Sioux being a peace loving people. The Indians used to fight and raid each other tribes but the great-grandson didn’t tell us about that.

The big lesson I learned from the great-grandson and the story of the Sioux is that you can’t trust the government. They promise you things but then enslave you and take away your property. They may even kill you as they did Sitting Bull.

Sitting Bull would love my porch. He could watch the deer roam through the yard and take out his bow and arrows to dispose of a few. I would love to have Sitting Bull as a neighbor. We could just sit around, tell stories and shot deer.

Monday, May 04, 2009

The New England States are leading the way for the nation to legalize same sex marriage. I have no objection with same sex unions becoming legalized. I have come to believe this is some sort of genetic aberration and some folks can’t help being attracted to another of the same gender. Some of my friends and interesting people I have know have been of this persuasion but it still grosses me out to see a man kiss another man in the mouth. I can take a woman kissing another woman in the mouth because they are always hugging, but even that is a little gross.

Same sex marriage will help with our population problem. It’s a little hard for same sex couples to reproduce. From some recent data, I have seen that the diminishing population among the Western Civilization may be a problem. In order to maintain a race there must be 2.1 births per family. We are way below that in the US and most of the European countries like England, Germany and France. The Muslims are out producing us. They are like rabbits or cockroaches. The world will be predominately Muslim this century.

The same sex marriage bunch need to hurry and get their fling over with soon because this will definitely not be permitted when the Muslims rule and the Islam religion is the religion of the land. Our Christian fundamentalist are really like an American Taliban. We must believe according to their particular denomination or else you are an infidel and doomed to hell fire. Under the Taliban rule same sex marriage is not permitted and, as a matter of fact, homosexuals are beheaded or stoned to death.

It’s hard to understand gays, lesbians, Taliban and even Christian Fundamentalist. I am reminded of a red neck cousin of mine who told be about another red-neck who went into a bar and ask a woman about her sexual interest. She told him that she was a lesbian. He ask her, what is a lesbian? She said that she was someone who desired a romantic and sexual relationship with a woman. She then ask him about himself. He replied, that he guessed he was also a lesbian.

I guess that Texas will soon be voting on legalizing same sex marriage. My conscience will probably keep me on the porch as it has in the past several elections. Mark Twain once wrote about a man who struggled with his conscience and he won. He no longer had a conscience and the murder and crime rate suddenly increased in his community. My conscience is the only thing that keeps me civil and protects a lot of folks I deal with.

Friday, May 01, 2009

The CDC is now calling the Swine Flu the H1N1 flu. They are trying to take the blame off the pigs and save the pork industry. People have the idea that eating the meat of pigs might give you the flu and this mistaken idea can devastate the pork business. The H1N1 is apparently a subtype of Type A influenza and is still the type that killed 21 million people worldwide in 1918. 600,000 Americans died in the 1918 pandemic. The 1918 flu was also called the Spanish Flu but it really didn’t start in Spain and most of the cases weren’t in that country. It’s just that Spain reported their cases. That flu pandemic actually started in Kansas and spread widely because of World War I and so many troops were in such close quarters the bug spread very rapidly. Many folks died from complications such as pneumonia that couldn’t be treated because it was before the days of antibiotics.

This flu scare is going to damage the economy even more. The tourist industry in Mexico must really be suffering. Statements like the one made yesterday by Vice President Joe Biden didn’t help matters. He said he wouldn’t be flying or going anywhere where there were crowds of people in close quarters. This was a financial blow to the airline industry who immediately countered the Vice-President with some expert advice from physicians that disputed his statement.

Jay Leno had some neat jokes about Biden and his mouth on the Tonight Show. Leno said that God had taken George Bush away but given us Joe Biden in his place. He said that President Obama had recommended for everyone to put their hand over their mouth when coughing or sneezing but that Biden should keep his mouth covered at all times.

It’s now thought that the H1N1 virus can be spread from birds as well as pigs to humans and from human to human. I‘ll bet that even deer may carry the nasty virus. The safest thing for me to do, on the porch, is get out my rifle and start blasting away at the birds, deer and all other wildlife. It’s better to be safe that sorry. No use running the risk in catching the flu from the wild animals. I’m already wearing a mask and have a bottle of that hand alcohol antiseptic stuff on the table next to my rocking chair. I‘m scrubbing down my hands every hour on the hour. I’m also taking the Vice Presidents advice and staying away from crowds and certainly no planes. I may even drink a little hot toddy as a preventive measure.