Hospital As Stark Scary Death Box? Hardly

Well kids I spent the whole day today in the hospital waiting for my mother to get out of her triple bypass surgery. She is doing just fine now. But as I was sitting there in the waiting room, I had time to think - especially when the battery wend down on my laptop.

First thing I noticed is that the waiting room was nothing and I mean NOTHING like it is on TV and in the movies (goddamnit, duped again). There were two couches squeezed into a corner of a long hallway, edged out of the way of the passing meds, patients and lumbering hospital beds whizzing by. There was no actual room, there were no tissue boxes on nice end tables, hell we didn't even have a fucking water cooler. Nothing. It was pretty disappointing that the waiting room is not even really a room.

Also, the peple in the hospital looked really SICK. I mean, I know nobody wears makeup and has great hair in the hospital, but some of the patients I saw were really messed up. Hair all every which way, live spots, wrinkles, sallow faces, tubes all over the place, blinking and beeping, asleep, eating slowly, staring into space, watching TV... Duped again!! I had never seen such a sorry bunch of people in my whole life.

I won't even get into what the food looked like that they were feeding these sick people.

But with all this around me, I did realise again that the hospital was different than portrayed in Hollywood. It wasn't scary. There were warm toned tiles on the floor, the couches were warm toned too. Plants were everywhere you looked in the halls and lounge. There was no weird smell that I had always heard people speak of. I didn't feel like death was looming around every corner. It didn't seem over sanitized. I was taken aback by that. And the staff was very nice and informative, not cold and trying to run somewhere else rather than talk to you.

Granted I don't watch any of the popular hospital shows - god, the first and last one I watched was St. Elsewhere. Remember that? The only Hollywood hospitals I ever got was in movies - and in the movies it's a lot more graphic and scary. I guess that was my only frame of reference before sitting in the hospital today. And I have to say that I can't really bitch about the hospital like I do everything else I do here.

Besides. I don't have the energy to do so anyway - sitting in the hospital "waiting room" all day can wear you out!!

Tobacco Company Vs. The Drug Dealer

Now, we all know that tobacco is highly addictive, even more so than heroine. And it has been widely publicized that the tobacco companies have been adding MORE tobacco to their cigarettes, not less, even as they have paid out more and more money to smokers who have sued them. I even read in the New York Times that the tobacco industries stocks have gone up and continue to rise (perhaps, in my opinion because the state of our country is so FUCKED UP).

So why is it that the drug dealer on the corner is the one to go to jail for selling addictive drugs and the tobacco companies are not? Like I stated in my earlier post, it is partially because cigarettes cannot be made in your backyard, so these giant companies can make them and make a fortune on it. Cocaine, marijuana, heroine, meth, speed and ecstacy can all be manufactured relatively simply at home. An industry could not regulate it, thus not make billions on it so hey!! let's make them illegal because some fat bastard CAN'T make money on it. So there is the stark hypocracy of the all mighty dollar versus whether or not there really IS a "war on drugs", and the government is waging this war because they really, really care about you. (Insert snickering here.)

"War on drugs". Let's think about that for a second. What that is stating is that any drug that is illegal is being targeted by the law. And the legal drugs?

Alcohol - kills more people every day than probably all the other drugs, legal
Cigarettes - so fucking toxic, like Chris Rock says, it's killing people that don't even smoke!!
Sleeping Pills - addictive, psychologically dependent, legal
Antidepressants - they have convinced us all that we are depressed, so we need to not be depressed and buy this or that pill so we feel better - BULLSHIT
Caffeine - addictive, ruins your stomach, your nervous system, your heart, legal
Pain Killers - also highly addictive, psychologically dependent, legal
Asprin - the most abused drug in the whole country, we are told that it is safe, but it causes ulcers and other gastrointestinal problems, even death, people overdose ALL THE TIME, legal

I don't see the difference between cocaine and anything listed above. Nor heroine, nor marijuana.

So where's the war? The war they are fighting is against individual people or small groups cutting into their exclusive "addiction money". And in fact, the war is not really a fight. How can a drug dealer fight the system? We have been taught that he is breaking the law - what law? He is not forcing the drugs on anyone else like the ad campaigns by the medical/pharmaceutical companies, cola companies, cigarette branding/advertising, the USDA. The drug dealer is not subliminally making our children buy his drugs. The drug dealer is not in every store, in every neighborhood, ONLINE on every billboard. The drug dealer doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is - trying to make money. Politics, medicine, religion and the law have all come together to mix into a nice hypocritical stew in which the little man is fucked. The only war that needs to be waged is the war on the lies....

One Ply, No Love

Why can't we get two ply toilet roll at work? Why do I have to sit and fight with the roll dispenser, squatted over the toilet bowl, cursing under my breath at the toilet roll that will only turn like half a millimeter and break off part of a one ply square? I just realised today how much freakin' time that wastes - they'd rather save a couple of bucks than save time, but they keep telling us time is money. So in essence, the one ply toilet roll at work is COSTING money because my bare ass can't get wiped in time to get back to the desk and annoy people with my sales calls. Two ply could MAKE the company money!!

Not only that, but god DAMN the one ply and it's sandpaper-like wipe. All ladies know that we wad that paper up into a freakin' grapefruit in order to sufficiently wipe with some kind of cushion. Again, the one ply is costing the company money. God forbid you have to really try to wipe clean - it's like a microdermabrasion procedure on your...part of the body that doesn't need one, let's put it like that.

Are the one ply toilet paper companies trying to sand the wrinkles out of America's sphincters?

I Did It Again....

I was so good for a while - I swear!! But now I have done it again. I drank too much last night. It was wine...again. I realise now that wine is so easy to drink. It's not like liquor in which when you sip it, it burns a bit and you feel it as you drink then at some point you can stop. With wine its different. It's like grape juice...with benefits. It goes down so easy and you just get happier and happier when you drink. And pair that with not having eaten last night and that is a recipe for me sitting here at my desk still drunk wishing to god that my head would crack open and blogging when I should be working. Damn. Oh great Bacchus, why have you bestowed such a wonderful but ridiculously wicked nectar upon mankind? Why did you let it get into my hands?.....

What Have I Done To Deserve This?

I went snowboarding up in Killington, VT this weekend - I highly recommend it, awesome slopes. They had a shitty bar though, but I digress. However, it was a five or more hour drive from Brooklyn so being on the road for that long, my boyfriend and I started to get a little hungry. So we decided we were going to stop somewhere that was good. Then mile after mile we began to realise that there IS NOTHING GOOD TO EAT on the highway. Only McDonald's (if you really, really, really want to get fat), Burger King (for fat and gas, and I'm not talking petrol), Roy Rogers (for the runs and trauma toward eating for days afterward), Denny's (if you have absolutely no qualms about throwing up right after eating), Bob's Big Boy (I have no idea what the hell that is), Pizza Hut (heart stoppage) and a few other eateries in which they might as well hand you a salt lick. It was unreal. It's like you're driving for hours, your back hurts, you're tired and when you get hungry, all you want to do is eat, but eating at any of these places when all you need is a hot meal is likely to make you violently angry. And still hungry. My advice - pack food before going on a long car trip.

To the Families of the World Trade Center Attacks Who Are Pushing For the Memorial

Now before I say what I have to say, I would like to start out by saying that I feel for the families that have lost loved ones in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. I am in no way trying to be disrespectful by what I am about to say, and though I have not personally lost someone I knew or loved in the disaster, I still feel like I have lost my fellow New Yorkers, my fellow countrymen, and to me, these folks are in my heart just as they are in the hearts of those closest to them.

That said, I must say, however, that I have about HAD IT with the families of the WTC victims stalling the building of the new World Trade Center, just because they don't like the specifications of the memorial dedicated to those who have perished in the disaster. Well at this point, loved ones, you are no longer memorializing the people who have died, you are making this all about you, all about your own grief about losing your family and friends. What about the rest of us? Like I said, the WTC attacks have deeply scarred me in a way that I don't fully realise myself, but I feel the best way for closure - and many other New Yorkers will agree with me - is to have the building go back up. It will be six years this September since the tragedy, and still we are stuck on this same issue of the memorial and I just can't take it anymore. I want the building and the memorial to go up so I can move forward about it. The towers had been there my whole life and I frequented the Windows on the World bar, so the towers were a part of me. Not having anything there is just a stark reminder of the tragedy.

I think that you families somehow are feeling that going back and forth about the memorial is somehow paying homage to your loved ones, perhaps a few of you are hoping against hope that somehow it will bring the lost back to you. It is not. This memorial has become a political nightmare and in fact, making me resent the whole idea and just wishing that they scrap the whole project because I just can't take it anymore. I hate saying that, but this is what's happening to me, a staunch New Yorker!! I feel that the energy that you have put into fighting for the memorial you want could have been put to better use fundraising for the memorial you wanted to your exact specifications and have put it up a long time ago and the new building would already be there. That is if all of you could agree with each other on the issue of the memorial. Far be it from me to side with the fat bastard (my term for the rich business man, mostly the greedy ones), but let the owner put his building back up!! How did this become about you? There are people all over the world who are losing loved ones on a daily basis through war and terrorist attacks who KEEP GOING. They don't dwell on death the way we do and I think that's it's strange, but equally important that we realise that war has now come home and future wars will be fought in urban areas and we have to start coming to terms with that fact, especially if the president still insists on waging his war in Iraq. More terrorist action will happen here in the U.S. and more death and destruction will follow. The world is changing and we must pay homage to our loved one's by being strong.

Drug Companies, Part 2 - What Goes Around Comes Around

An Old Cholesterol Remedy Is New Again

sic - FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
By MICHAEL MASON
Published: January 23, 2007

Perhaps you heard it? The wail last month from the labs of heart researchers and the offices of Wall Street analysts?

Pfizer Inc., the pharmaceutical giant, halted late-stage trials of a cholesterol drug called torcetrapib after investigators discovered that it increased heart problems — and death rates — in the test population.

Torcetrapib wasn’t just another scientific misfire; the drug was to have been a blockbuster heralding the transformation of cardiovascular care. Statin drugs like simvastatin (sold as Zocor) and atorvastatin (Lipitor) lower blood levels of LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, thereby slowing the buildup of plaque in the arteries.

But torcetrapib worked primarily by increasing HDL, or good cholesterol. Among other functions, HDL carries dangerous forms of cholesterol from artery walls to the liver for excretion. The process, called reverse cholesterol transport, is thought to be crucial to preventing clogged arteries.

Many scientists still believe that a statin combined with a drug that raises HDL would mark a significant advance in the treatment of heart disease. But for patients now at high risk of heart attack or stroke, the news is better than it sounds. An effective HDL booster already exists.

It is niacin, the ordinary B vitamin.

In its therapeutic form, nicotinic acid, niacin can increase HDL as much as 35 percent when taken in high doses, usually about 2,000 milligrams per day. It also lowers LDL, though not as sharply as statins do, and it has been shown to reduce serum levels of artery-clogging triglycerides as much as 50 percent. Its principal side effect is an irritating flush caused by the vitamin’s dilation of blood vessels.

Despite its effectiveness, niacin has been the ugly duckling of heart medications, an old remedy that few scientists cared to examine. But that seems likely to change.
*******

Now doesn't that seem to fit in with what I had mentioned earlier here in the blog - first my speaking about the shaman vs. the drug company then my scathing rant about the drug companies themselves (goddamn legal drug overlords). Well now you see it is coming full circle, as I already knew (especially since I wear my conspiracy glasses). And is it really such a coincidence that Pfizer is closing it's plant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn? It seems that they had sunk all their money into backing this drug which caused more harm than good when all the while there has been a vitamin that does the same healing, but of COURSE they would not let you know that. In fact, there have been press releases I have seen that have tried to downplay the benefits of vitamins - and in fact the FDA does not even recognize the claims made on packaging by the makers of vitamins. Hmmm. Do you think it is also a coincidence that people who are into "health" and "vitamins" are looked down upon as new-age space cadets? Empty gurus who are holding on to a passing fad? Well the fad hasn't passed and I think more folks should look into the benefits of vitamins and healthier alternatives to Western medicine. Western medicine is based on MONEY, not health or healing. Here in the U.S. we put a program on Discovery Channel every once in a while which touts the miracles of modern medicine and medical technology in which we reapair the cleft pallet of a young Philippine child, or straighten the spine of an African boy or repair the severely deformed face of a young American girl stricken with severe Treacher-Collins disease. These are all good things, but one must understand that these are extreme medical cases that need extreme measures. Yes, we in the West are awesome for that. But not for drug therapies. We should be learning from the East in that respect. And not only learn from the East, but give people the choice to choose whatever such healing we so desire - not to try to downplay every other alternative. Sounds a lot like politics to me...and medicine should have nothing at all to do with politics.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh........

'Tobacco pandemic' fuelled by nicotine hike

13:22 18 January 2007
NewScientist.com news service
New Scientist staff and Reuters

Cigarette makers increased the amount of nicotine that smokers typically inhale by 11% between 1998 to 2005, perpetuating a "tobacco pandemic" that makes it harder for smokers to quit, according to a new study.

Manufactures have been intensifying the concentration of nicotine in their tobacco and modifying cigarette designs to increase the number of puffs per cigarette, the researchers claim. "The end result is a product that is potentially more addictive," they say.

The team at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US, analysed data submitted by major cigarette brands to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which in August 2006 released its own study showing nicotine levels steadily rising.

The amount of nicotine that smokers typically consume per cigarette regardless of brand per year rose by an average of 1.6% between 1998 and 2005, according to the new analysis of the state's health records.

Massachusetts has required tobacco companies to submit annual reports on cigarette nicotine yields since 1997, longer than any other US state.
Cancer role

"Cigarettes are finely tuned drug delivery devices designed to perpetuate a tobacco pandemic," says Howard Koh, the school's associate dean for public health practice and former Massachusetts commissioner of public health.

Nicotine yields rose in cigarettes of each of the four major manufacturers and across all major cigarette market categories – from mentholated and non-mentholated to full-flavoured, light and ultralight, the researchers found.

Nicotine is the main addictive component of tobacco, but studies have demonstrated that the chemical also plays a direct role in cancer, by speeding up the growth of tumours.

Tobacco industry officials were not immediately available to comment. Phillip Morris, part of Altria Group Inc and the largest cigarette maker, has said nicotine levels fluctuate from year to year but there has been no steady increase.
Sales dropping

The most recent federal tobacco tax figures showed that the number of cigarettes sold in the US fell in 2005 to the lowest level in 55 years, dropping 4.2% from 2004, the largest one-year percentage decrease since 1999.

That continued an eight-year decline in cigarette smoking since the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between US states and the tobacco industry that settled state lawsuits over the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

"Our findings call into serious question whether the tobacco industry has changed at all in its pursuit of addicting smokers since signing the Master Settlement Agreement," said Gregory Connolly, director of the Harvard School of Public Health's Tobacco Control Research Program.

He said tobacco companies had failed to warn consumers about rising levels of nicotine since the 1998 settlement, urging US states to step up scrutiny of the industry.

Banks, Or As I like To Call Them, Legal Loan Sharking Mafioso

Listen to my tale of woe, it's terribly sad but true....I had checked my balance two weeks ago to make sure I had some money in the bank. I did. So I went out and spent, as usual, doing my weekly shopping: groceries, pet supplies, laundry and the likes. Then the weekend hits. I go out, pay for food and drinks and then end up at a bar that takes cash only. OK. I step out to an ATM to get some cash and come to find out I have "Insufficient Funds". I was shocked to the point that I stared at that ATM screen wondering how it had learned to lie. Next morning I get online and as it turns out, when I had checked my balance previously, I sure enough did have money there. But as luck would have it, a check I wrote had cashed probably the minute I had logged off and it was just the amount I thought I had. OK. So why did the bank let me keep spending money, spiraling me into a negative balance? Why was I not alerted that I had gone under? Why was I still allowed to spend money that wasn't there? The loan shark gets his cut of money you "borrow". Somehow my bank has now extended a line of credit to me that I did not ask for!! Oh yes kids, the banks now say they are "covering" any spending you do so that you don't get a decline on the register of you seem to have insufficient funds. They have come up with the line that they are looking out for you. But lo, each time you run your pretty little card, they charge about $35 for an "Overdraft Fee", on EACH purchase you make. The loan shark effect. So in essence, that is a LEGAL fee they charge, like a loan shark, for you "borrowing" their fucking "kindness". This is legal!! It's only legal because it it a set amount, not something that they can change at a whim (for now). And you know why they know they can do this? Because they they have come up with the GENIUS plan to offer you free checking if you have direct deposit. You see kids, that's how they GET YOU. If you have direct deposit, they KNOW they will get that money back, plus their fees. So they let you spend and spend so that they may amass the overdraft fees into a large sum to take away from you when you get your salary deposited into your account. Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant how capitalism has turned into this ugly monster which manufactures greedy monster zombies and all but stamps out the poor. When is this going to end? How long are people going to put up with this? When does this kind of sneaky thievery cross the line? When are the rest of folks going to get angry enough to affect a change?

I swear to god and everything good left on this earth the conspiracy is real.