Chinese Medicine

Here is a NY Times article regarding Heparin, a blood thinner, and its contamination, which allegedly caused 81 deaths. The article identifies a Chinese subsidiary as the source of the contaminant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/health/policy/30heparin.html?ref=health

We can deal with outsourced jobs, buying $0.99 flip-flops from Walmart that were made in China and shipped across the ocean to us, but when it comes to poisons in our medicine, will we finally draw the line?

I'm not so sure any of it will matter anyway, in several years when the only jobs we have are walking around pouring coffee for each other.

I'm Damned Aggravated and Howlin Wolf

So Aggravated...

For starters my POS computer CPU light is on all the time and can't seem to handle doing anything more than Microsoft Calculator before it's starts acting like a complete POS.

They make better comptuers, and then Microsoft, RealPlayer, Spysweeper, Norton, McAfee, Winzip, and every other vendor juices up there software so we're back at square one in terms of efficiency and speed.

Sorry, that was just the last straw.

*******************

Some times the only thing that keeps me sane is the Bluesman Howlin' Wolf.

I just bought another CD at the used CD store. I can tell you that in my part of the country Blues is not really popular.

So I am listening to the Wolf minister to me with lyrics like:

"I have had my fun if I never get well no more,"

and

"I didn't mean to do you no harm."

Wolf, you never did me no harm.

The best buy I ever made was a Howlin Wolf Remastered Gold CD (which I bought for about $8, now they go for around $100). Some of the tunes on this, loaded with harmonica, guitar, bass, and of course, the Wolf, are in such perfect synchrony that, to me, I smile and suddenly I feel like I am somewhere in the sweltering Southern Delta listening to this band, which has now melded into a set of lungs pumping air through the vocal chord of SOUL. The guitar groans and I feel like I can feel the years of senseless toil, heartbreak, discontent, weariness, untiring weariness. But more than just the expression of these, it is a catharsis - a release of all these things that drag a man down, letting them roll off of your nose like a drop of sweat.

Sing it Wolf

In the World with Others

The following is a quote that a friend gave me:


"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music--the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

~Henry Miller

One of the things I admire the most about the philosophy of Heidegger, is the notion of this Being or Dasein, the idea that we are always and from the start already with the people, places, times and objects of our shared world. This is Mitsein, Being-with.

There is no Cartesian impasse; we are not ghosts in the machines of a body, we are not prisoners to our subjective (and rational) consciousness. Res Cogitans and Res Extensa, Descartes Ontological categories are mistaken.
(see http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/r9.htm)

There is no need to create an intellectual, rational bridge from us to the world, to others. We don't need to kick and worry how to escape from a cocoon.

Although I admire them, psychologists and authors such as Rollo May, Carl Rogers, and Binswanger are simply on the way towards Being. Binswanger felt he needed to supplement Heidegger's notion of Care with one of love. Medard Boss understood Heidegger perfectly.

Oak Creek Canyon

Spent some time at Oak Creek Canyon this weekend. It was beautiful, as always. I couldn't find any trout, however, and after I got back to my hotel I read in the guide that the ranger station puts out, that it is stocked with fish in the summer months.

I don't know the life cycles of trout and such, but it seems to me there were none to be had.

Modern Medicine

Another trip to a doctor's office today. While I'm hoping this one will bear some fruit, or help me improve my quality of life, I couldn't help but feel frustrated once again. I get the impression that doctors these days are another part of the machinery.

The mass-production, distribution machinery to get us well enough to go back to work and that's it. I know I shouldn't saddle individual doctors with the burden of healing the world, but I don't get the feeling that they have much curiosity anymore.

With all of our technological advances and the increased communication made possible by the internet, I would expect an increase in revolutionary drugs, cures for diseases, and every other sort of miracle. I don't see it happening, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

It's scary to think that what drives innovation is simply profit, that companies decide what gets studied and what sits on the shelf.

With the Social Security and Medicare programs set to be bleeding our government dry, I'm worried about the prospects for even maintaining our current levels of health care.

Maybe we go back to leaving the sick and old out on the hillsides to perish.

Wouldn't it be nice if we spent all the time, money, lives, and energy that we spend on war on curing all the diseases and ills that plague us?

Forgive my ramblings.