I just got done with a lecture at the National College of Natural Medicine here is beautiful Portland, Oregon. I’d like to thank Dr. Kristen McElveen, ND and every attendee for allowing me to speak at your Grand Rounds. Even the 7:30 am start time wasn’t as bad as I expected.
Here is the presentation I did in Powerpoint. If you use any of the slides, just tell everyone where you got it.
Well, I knew it was bound to happen. My brother-in-law Brooke warned me, my fellow Rotarian’s laughed about it and now it has come. I was sent a membership application from AARP yesterday. Yes, the American Association of Retired Persons found out I’m turning 50 shortly. I swear I just turned 21 yesterday. How did those years pass so quickly.
Do I feel 50, no way. Age is just a state of mind and while I feel I have gained wisdom in the 50 years, life is still as playful as it was 29 years ago (ok, so my body doesn’t recover as quickly but my mind does). To keep a youthful exuberance and a positive outlook on life may not be so easy, especially in today’s turbulent economic world, keeping an optimistic point of view is the only way to stay young in spirit.
Being an Eeyore is a sure way to age faster than you should. Being a realistic optimist is a way to slow down aging and to enjoy each and every minute. Here are a few of my thoughts on life:
Life is way too short to be miserable and angry. As bad as things may seem, they can and will get better if you want them to and work toward that end.
Today’s blog is a short one. Please go to this website and ponder it’s phrase. A great way to live one’s life.
In 1981, when Ronald Reagan came to office I was concerned that his economic policies that he was proposing were insane. They made no sense to me as an economics major. Trickle down economics, his theory that giving tax breaks to the rich would trickle down to the middle class and make the economy boom was implausible. It was, in my opinion, one of the most bizarre and illogical ideas I ever heard and even George Bush Sr agreed. Heck he even called it voodoo economics. But heck, I was just a 23 year old and too young to understand things. Or was I?
This week we barely missed going into the Great Depression part two. It was inevitable. What bothers me is that all of the billionaires and millionaires who have made so much money got bailed out and now we, the taxpayers, the hard working individuals and families have to pay for all the losses. Do the rich people who basically stole my money and your money have to pay? Hell no. Now they put up a candidate who not only doesn’t want to pay more taxes, he wants more tax breaks for the wealthy. How much more do they want to steal from us now?
The rich have gotten richer in the past 30 years and the middle class has been squeezed and the poor have gotten nothing and been swelling over the years. On September 16th with the takeovers of AIG, trickle down and the nonsense of the past 30 years have come to an end.
Funny to hear John McCain talking about increasing regulation of the financial markets when his party spent the past three decades espousing deregulation and his chairmanship of commerce commitees were at the forefront of the deregulation movement. What a hypocritical position. While my blog is not intended to be a political blog, I am sitting here in my living room looking at my children wondering how the hell they are going to pay for this mess. I don’t know, do you?
I urge my readers to vote for Barack Obama and end the decades of the same bad economic policies that have put us on the brink of disaster. He may not be the perfect candidate, who is, but he does represent a change we really need badly or all of the sacrifices our ancestors made for this country go for naught.
In case you haven’t heard about my podcasts, you can scoot over to them on my Let’s Talk Real Health podcast site (labinterpretation.podhoster.com) and either download to a podcatcher like iTunes or just listen to it online.
I have already covered subjects like CODEX and DSHEA, cholesterol myths and truths, catecholamines, arabinose versus D-arabinitol as a yeast marker, and a few book, website and journal reviews.
Enjoy them and sign up to hear more of them. You can also find the link at my new company website, Lab Interpretation LLC. It has lots of other great info as well.
Well, I finally did it. I started podcasting. The podcast name is – Let’s Talk Real Health and while it isn’t perfect (yet), it is something I hope you will download to your iPod or mp3 player, or just listen to it online. This weeks segment includes a discussion on PSA testing, styrene markers in urine, uric acid as a natural antioxidant and a book review.
Each week, any maybe more often, I’ll be putting new podcasts up whenever new research is released, I get a wild idea about something exciting, or I hear from a colleague or listener asking me to discuss something. I hope you find the podcasts interesting and helpful and definitely not boring.
I don’t want my blog to be a political battle ground but as my readers are aware, I am big on science and the environment and feel that these past 7 years have been a true debacle. Never in U.S. history has a President been so against science. It hurts our educational system, it hurts our environment and it hurts the citizens of these United States and the world. The current President’s education must have been severely lacking to be so anti-science.
So, how do the two major party candidates compare educationally. Actually, it seems to be a big win for the Democratic ticket of Obama and Biden. Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and got his undergrad degree from Columbia University which is pretty impressive. John McCain graduated 894 out of 899 at the Naval Academy. Obama wins this one hands down.
It is even worse when you compare Biden and Palin. She graduated from the University of Idaho, a fine school, in Journalism. Biden on the other hand graduated from the University of Delware with a double major and has a doctorate in law from Syracuse University. Neither of the Republicans has an advanced degree and while this does not exclude them from running for President, it should make you doubt their capacity for running the most powerful country in the world.
The big scare for me is how do they handle scientific issues? Or will it be more of the same as the past 7+ years? I won’t say much else politically but I think this is an issue that needs to be aired out. Not more nonsense about the candidates kids or spouses.
Mark Schauss – Boulderfest 2008 Presentation
This weekend I had the pleasure and honor to speak at Boulderfest 2008 put on by a company I no longer have anything to do with unfortunately due to unethical management. Here is the PowerPoint presentation I gave this past Thursday, July 17th. Also, to all the attendees, I was energized by all of your care and interest in helping people. It is inspiring!!!
Pretty sad to read an internet news article entitled “Don’t let a hospital kill you” but that is becoming the state of affairs in our for-profit medical world. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 99,000 people die each year because of infections acquired in the hospital”. This is an unacceptable number.
Sloppiness, a “this kind of thing happens” mentality and a focus on profit instead of patient care are just some of the reasons why this is happening in America. The article linked to above from CNN.com lists a few things to help prevent the infections that are killing people when they go to the hospital. Well worth reading before your next visit.
The Newest Finding in the Use of Laboratory Testing in Inflammation
I just gave a talk in Boulder, Colorado at the Healing Journey Seminar on the use of laboratory testing and inflammation. For those of you interested in the subject, I’ve uploaded the Powepoint presentation. Enjoy!