SPECIALSChrome and Carcinogens in Your Tap Water by Michael Braunstein
Your relationship with Steven Soderbergh is at least as personal as mine. Soderbergh is the Oscar-winning director of such fabled films as Sex, Lies and Videotape, Erin Brockovich, Oceans Eleven and Traffic. In 2001 he became the first film director since 1938 to be nominated for Best Director Oscar for two movies in the same year: Traffic and Erin Brockovich. He is the only director ever to be double-nominated for Oscar, Golden Globes and Directors Guild awards all in the same year. (He won for Brockovich.) I knew him when: Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich also earned Julia Roberts an Oscar. The film was about a small town in California that was polluted by a cancer-causing chemical called hexavalent chromium or chromium-6.…
entered on 12/30/10 at 01:36 PM | read more »
Air on the Side of Health
In the dead of winter, we all become draft dodgers. We do the best we can to seal up windows and doors to keep cold air out and warm air in. Now that we’re in winter lockdown, we spend more time breathing the indoor air of our apartment or house. The good news is we aren’t freezing our lungs. The bad news is that the air inside our homes is often more polluted with chemicals than the air outside. In fact, several studies have found that indoor air pollution can be more of a threat to our health than the smoggiest day in L.A. Indoor pollutants fall into some basic categories. Environmental Tobacco Smoke: A report last month by researchers…
entered on 12/22/10 at 11:03 AM | read more »
Holiday Healing:
Procrastinators, take heart! If you’ve waited until the last minute to fill Christmas stockings or pump up the pile under the tree, here are some easy things to choose just in time for the holiday. Any one of them will bring a smile and have the added benefit of enriching the life of the recipient. Some of these suggestions involve a gift certificate so you can purchase them quickly, easily and at the last minute if you wish. The emphasis is on offering something for the mind, body and spirit. Rubber neck: Give her (or him) a gift certificate for a therapeutic massage. The next best thing to doing it yourself is having a pro do it for you. And…
entered on 12/15/10 at 01:25 PM | read more »
Swine Flu Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Each flu season the dog-and-pony show starts. But this year, health departments countrywide are reporting two very interesting facts: Cases of influenza are lower than usual and fewer people are getting flu shots. Is that coincidence? Each year the Center for Disease Control falsely claims that 36,000 persons die annually in the United States from influenza. In fact, the actual number is in the hundreds, not thousands. CDC’s own data shows that only 257 people died of flu in 2001; only 753 in 2002; 1600 in 2003, viewable at heartlandhealing.com/flu. Fear sells So why does the CDC use the 36,000-a-year claim? It’s my opinion that number is bandied about for one purpose: selling flu shots. The strategy…
entered on 12/07/10 at 05:18 PM | read more »
Ten Traditional Therapies
American medicine kills hundreds of thousands each year. That’s not an exaggeration. Recently it was reported that hospitals kill 15,000 Americans each month. The report wasn’t from some radical fringe health reporter. No, it comes from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, those with a vested interest in keeping the status quo and not rocking the boat. They’re going to be conservative with their estimates. Additionally, the data included only those on Medicare, a fraction of patients. It excludes the vast majority of hospitalizations, so the number of those killed in hospitals is likely much, much higher. Read this carefully A very reliable source places the number of persons killed by American medicine at just under one…
entered on 12/01/10 at 02:44 PM | read more »
Gratitude is an Attitude
It’s the little things isn’t it, that make up every day? And we so blithely cruise through with little heed though so many give us immeasurable pleasure. It’s possible that even the thought of being grateful for things can bring even more of the things we like and want into our life. Having a positive outlook and thinking positively are known to be good for us. I’m not talking about some Polyannaish denial of reality. It’s a fact that just changing the way we think about something has benefit to our health. Recognition of the things that make us happy keeps us in that sunny frame of mind and that’s good for overall health. So permit me a bit of…
entered on 11/24/10 at 11:09 AM | read more »
Biophobia
It may be unfair to call biophobia a pandemic. Like the trumped-up charade known as the 2009 swine flu “pandemic,” it’s not true that most of the world is affected by biophobia, though it impacts far more people than swine flu ever did or will. You haven’t seen biophobia in the headlines and don’t know what it is? Though not a mainstream media buzzword, its symptoms are everywhere. Meat processing plants, industrial milk production, clothing, sunglasses, shoes, packaging, car seats, carpets, bathrooms, bedrooms, banks and grocery stores — the signs of biophobia are all around us. Humans want to kill things that threaten us and we perceive threat everywhere, regardless of whether the threat is real. Our response to it…
entered on 11/17/10 at 02:00 PM | read more »
McDermott Carries Creighton to Valley Title
The stakes couldn’t have been higher. The atmosphere couldn’t have been more electric. And the Jays couldn’t have come up with a more clutch effort...
more »Doug’s sigh said it all. The Jays were mired in a slump, and Illinois State had just come into the CenturyLink Center and handed Creighton another...
more »Seismic shifts in conference alignment have been rocking college athletics over the past few seasons, and it appears likely that Creighton could...
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Cosmic Forecast, May 2-May 8¿Cómo ésta? Happy Cinco de Mayo. This is the/a week to clean up, take care of and finish up your spring cleaning. Take care of all the/your loose...
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Cosmic Forecast, Apr. 25-May 1
Happy Full Moon conjunct a retrograde Saturn at 5° degrees Scorpio, at 3 ’til 3:00 on the afternoon of the 25th. Watch out! Responsibility is about...
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Cosmic Forecast, Apr. 18-Apr. 24
Welcome into Taurus, ruler of both the throat (the part of the body astrologically attributed to the second sign), and the planet of love, Venus....
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Cosmic Forecast, Apr. 11-Apr. 17
We just saw the start of the astrological New Year at dawn on April 10th; the Aries New Moon during Aries. That’s when to initiate your spring...
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