Wednesday, October 26, 2011

When it comes to Curing cancer, PUNT!


PUNTING ON A CURE

Saturday night I was watching the World Series at a local tavern with my fellow coach Duane after our team's hockey game.

Major League Baseball has embraced the MasterCard marketing campaign Stand Up for Cancer. If you've watched any TV recently you've probably seen celebrities getting involved being pictured holding their little placards with the name of a loved one affected by Cancer. What's not to like? Right?

Well my new buddy Duane, a 55 year old guy who's been around the block several times over, shakes his head, saying it's all a bunch of Bullshit.

"Really?," I say, knowing that Duane is a man devoted to family and God, hardly a radical cynic. But Duane rails on about the pink accessories that most of the NFL is wearing for the entire month of October to increase awareness of breast cancer, and he stated that it's all a ridiculous money grab. "Really?"

He proceeds to tell me what he has learned about Cancer, and the monumental finances at stake for the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society, Big Pharmaceuticals and the whole medical industrial complex itself. He then told me an anecdotal tale about how he advocated for a loved one with cancer and how he located a doctor who had a practice in Texas with an amazing success rate battling cancer using holistic methods, mainly nutrition. How he got in touch with those close to the doctor and discovered that he was basically blackballed and chased out of the United States. The practice resurfaced in Tijuana, Mexico. Duane told me about how he had to sneak his uncle across the border for treatments. I didn't take any notes, but Duane shared a lot he learned about dealing with cancer, and explained in layman terms how vital it is to battle it organically, to get one's body involved in the fight through boosting the immune system, and how chemo and radiation are so poisonous. I left thinking that he made a lot of sense, but that it was still his passion, not mine.

The next night I'm watching the World Series over at my ex-wife's house with my son with his step-family, and see a huge TV pitch for Stand Up for Cancer integrated into the live telecast, more immediate and impacting than a paid commercial. I didn't have enough facts or passion to tell the living room audience that Stand Up for Cancer is simply an exploitive money grab. But it was impossible not to think about it after previous night's conversation with coach Duane.

I bid farewell around 10 pm and began scanning radio channels during my drive home. I landed on an independent station in New York, and as if on cue, one of those fundraisers was going on where they play clips from a documentary as an enticement to contribute. I sat in rapture as I heard the century-long history of how the American Medical Association has been demonizing holistic Cancer cures to boost the profits of their publication and the medical industry as a whole. They spoke at length about a Dr. Gerson who was having some amazing results curing cancer mainly through nutrition, but only one of his many studies got published before the magazine was threatened and Gerson was blackballed. The documentary went on about how advocates for Gerson used the Freedom of Information Act to read the alleged findings of medical malfeasance by Gerson and other holistic doctors, only to find that the report didn't exist, even though it was being cited frequently by an AMA "assasin" Dr. Fishbein.

The report continued, detailing the demise of Dr. Gerson, and how he and his practice had to flee to Mexico. I was almost sickened to learn how humanity's #1 killer has been subjugated by the medical industrial complex to keep the massive profits flowing. The documentary and coach Duane's bar spiel were in perfect concert. The documentary spoke so logically about how mainstream treatment for cancer: cutting, chemo and radiation; hasn't changed in the better part of a century. There's simply too much money at stake for any change. The documentary actually quoted doctors as saying there was no way that a solution based on nutrition was going to replace traditional cancer treatments because of the financial implications.

I got out of my car at the end of the documentary clip, and looked into the night sky filled with stars, a glowing universe. Here we are on this planet, a planet that provides us with the natural remedies to fight this disease, and our country's lust for profits systematically run people with the knowledge to cure, people like Dr. Gerson, out of town, out of state, out of the country.

Uggh. Hard to swallow.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Larussa speaks to both sides of the border


LaRUSSA GOES BI

In one of the great moments in TV sports for reasons of cultural inclusion, Tony Larussa complies with Houston reporter Francisco's (SportsRap is efforting to get his name and affiliation)request to have Larussa comment in Spanish on his choice to use Mexican-born Jamie Garcia to start Game 2 of the series. Garcia rightly called it historic, mentioning Fernando Valenzuela in the same breath, saying that Larussa would be speaking to Hispanic baseball fans on both sides of the border. Larussa complied with competent, if not fluent, Spanish.

http://multimedia.foxsports.com/m/video/47154100/la-russa-answers-in-spanish.htm

This is yet another feather in the cap of a man enjoying the pinnacle of a very difficult profession.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Down on Wall Street


Middle Age Mike Journeys Down to Wall Street to be Heard

On the same day in which a Wall Street financier goes public in the New York Times dismissing the Wall Street "Occupants" as simply unemployed kids looking for sex drugs and rock and roll, Zuccotti Park was teeming with Baby Boomers, getting the word out with a vast array of signs and plenty of "hoarse power," maintaining momentum for a protest with no cause that has seeming gone viral. It's global now, and apparently can't be dismissed. Where it leads, no one knows, but there is seemingly limitless human energy behind it.

There is love and good will and altruism everywhere one turns at the Park. Locals are having a tough time dealing with 12 hours of daily drumming, bathroom issues, bathing in sinks and other symptoms of overpopulation. But the Occupation continues. Young and old, black and white, male and female. Can it be ignored?

Monday, October 3, 2011

Occupation Wall Street

It
DIMITRI Fresh from a night in the Pokey

It was a classic fall Sunday in lower Manhattan, and unless you were within a block of Liberty Square, you might have missed the Occupation that the participants are calling "Living History." Despite hundreds of arrests the night before, the scene was completely peaceful, with Police keeping an eye on the Occupation HQ and special police liaisons in light blue NYPD golf shirts doing their best to maintain peaceful dialogue.
(Link to Photos
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2015289108684.2095731.1437532070&type=1)
or just hit my name on Facebook

They aren't fools, just fellow disenfranchised citizens. No, they can't articulate any demands, because the western banking system is simply too complex. Michael Lewis said as much on Charlie Rose Monday night, but he did agree that they this Occupation may have legs. Much of it is due to vast unemployment of American youth, and a resentment of the investor class that is getting unlimited backing from our government with taxpayer money.

Mainstream media is marginalizing this group, but underground media via social networking has created a buzzing hive of fresh information.
http://occupywallst.org/
Attitudes were all upbeat, people getting on board, not sure where they're going, but most don't have jobs to return to. A microcosm of modern America, 99% of a country adrift.