Thursday, October 27, 2011

Is Hawaii Now the Worst Place to Live?

It is no secret that Hawaii has the highest cost of living in the United States -- because it is not united with all the others, but an island far apart, and trying to maintain its separation as an identity -- if not badge of merit, rather than joining the rest of the human race, as the rest of the world is. That is the high cost of maintaining that distinction, in the world of standardization -- which is that conformity to the uniformity of standards that make it efficient and cost-effective.

We know that a part that can take or fit any other, is likely to be much cheaper than one that has to be custom-made for each occasion from scratch -- as though even the wheel has to be first reinvented and calculated into the cost of the finished product -- "Because we do things differently in Hawaii." Therefore, the bicycle wheel that works on the Mainland, might not hold up to Hawaii's roads with all its potholes and poorly engineered roads. And rather than simply replace a pair of cheap flip flops, we need a special glue and patch kit, to keep them going until we can't patch them anymore.

So that manner of specialization (aversion) to conform to the uniformity of standards, makes economies of scale impossible, because one is virtually always custom designing for the one, instead of being able to take advantage of the economies of mass production -- even though it turns out, the product may even be substandard at a premium price -- because that is how the market is "regulated" -- to cost as much as possible, as though that were the highest end in itself, and if one can not pay, then one should not play -- until finally, the sidewalks, parks, beaches, bus stops, are overrun, as the expression of compassion for the less fortunate in that society.

Something is very, very wrong there -- when they let people sink to that level of poverty and despair, and then feel they are being tolerant and compassionate, to let them live at the bus stop babbling to themselves -- unharassed. That is the very mark of a society that doesn't know the meaning of tolerance and compassion, or anything for that matter. And so everyone lives on their own private island, apart from everybody else -- without any shared vision of what life is, and can be. And so "Da Kine" could be, and does mean anything you want to think -- because it doesn't matter what you think.

Goethe once described Heaven as a place where everything is connected and related to everything else -- and Hell where nothing is connected and related to anything else. The progress and evolution of the past 50 years is largely this connection and integration to everything else -- and so one is no longer left on an island all by themselves, but literally have the collective intelligence of the human consciousness at their fingertips.

So to still be conditioned (educated) to think one has to do all one's thinking apart from this total intelligence, is operating at a decided and irrecoverable disadvantage to the basic operating conditions most people have now or desire to -- yet to convince themselves that that is their major blessing and bliss, is a tremendous handicap to overcome.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Cold (Backache) That Just Won't Go Away

Back in 2003, a Dr. St. Amand came to Hawaii and gave a presentation on his guaifenesin cure for fibromyalgia -- which I was interested in because I was familiar with guaifenesin, and thought it was a miraculous cure-all back in the mid-80s, and so I was not surprised of its curative effects -- although I had no idea what fibromyalgia was, other than some vague autoimmune disease.

So I learned about this disease and the doctor's explanation on how it "cured" fibromyalgia (FMS), but the major thing I came away with, was the doctor's assurance that guaifenesin could be taken daily, longterm with no known negative side-effects, yet plenty of well-known positive ones -- as most people have experienced taking Robitussin when they have a cold or flu, unlike the other cold remedies without it, or in addition to it.

Guaifenesin's chief property is that it thins the mucus in the lungs when one has a cold or flu (along with accompanying aches and pains), so that one can "expectorate" it out of the body. However, anything that thins the mucus in the lungs, would logically thin the mucus throughout the body, and not just in the lungs, just like aspirin doesn't just thin the blood going to the brain and heart, but thins the blood throughout the body.

As people get older, the fluids of the body tend to solidify, which is the reason daily aspirin is advised to prevent the thickening of the blood, while the other major fluid of the body (mucus), is not given similar attention unless one has acute condition of a cold, flu, bronchitis, back pain, joint pain, irritable bowel syndrome -- all the symptoms associated with FMS, including fibrofog, or fuzzy (confused) thinking.

I had often noted that when I took Robitussin, I felt very good -- but that was usually to specifically treat a cold, flu, or bronchitis that I had frequently, along with back pains -- and in fact, when I attended the doctor's lecture, my back pain had gotten so bad and persisted for so long, I thought I was on the verge of never walking again. But since the doctor said guaifenesin was such a miraculous cure for all those symptoms that I had but had never been diagnosed as FMS, I started taking guaifenesin daily since, and have never had any more colds, flu, back pain, etc., though they were a periodic, though constant plague all my life -- and getting to be a constant torment until then.

That was a major turning point in my life -- which is one of the underground pieces of information you sound like you might be very interested and motivated to know and act upon.

But the source of the autoimmune response (thickening of the mucus) is often ignored as something inconvenient, if not trivial -- such as mold, mildew, pollutants, germs, bacteria etc., rather than very real threats to one's health and well-being that can easily be addressed and eliminated by inexpensively available air purifiers -- primarily on the Internet, which ironically, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Consumer Reports have done their best to keep off the shelves of retailers -- in their confusion that possible (theoretical) risks, outweigh the well-known ones.

The hardest thing to see -- is the very air we breathe and live in. Or maybe we just don't want to see it.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Who Were (Are) the Pharisees and the Scribes?

We're quickly moving into the season of the recounting and remembrance of the roots of present civilization -- culminating in "The Greatest Story Ever Told," and how it still has relevance in these present times -- or do they?

Didn't the Pharisees and Scribes only live in biblical times -- or are there still modern day equivalents, calling themselves by more innocent (noble) titles -- like "professionals" of every stripe, teachers, experts, journalists, freelance writers, lawyers, lobbyists, spokespersons et al? Such professionals have a ruthless ability to divorce their personal lives from their professional (public) ones -- with no qualms about saying one thing, and something entirely different -- from one sentence to the next, depending on what they think they can get away with -- because most people are not so unscrupulous.

However, a few are -- just like an exceptional few will be beyond the limits of the norm in every human activity and experience. Such people we know as "pathological liars," the mentally ill (deranged), the disabled, etc. Most people commonly experience such extremes in the bullying and intimidation of ruthless and ambitious people -- who think that others exist merely for their own gratification and expedience -- and so it doesn't matter if they have to be killed, manipulated or deceived in order for them to get their way -- as the only thing that matters, and is their sole consideration.

Thus we need laws to keep such people in check -- because they don't have the capacity to keep themselves in check, as most people do. That's the line one has to draw -- to distinguish the criminal from the innocent.

The Pharisees and the Scribes are the bullies, manipulators and intimidators of every age and society -- calling themselves such noble-sounding names and offices -- while insisting they should do all the thinking and talking for everybody else, and that it is the station and purpose of everybody else, to merely repeat and chant (sing), what they have proclaimed is the only way one should think and express -- and everything else is heretical, sacrilege, or as we proudly proclaim today, "politically incorrect."

Those who enforce the edicts, merely have these more "enlightened" and better sounding names -- to do the same job they've done since time immemorial -- and of course, are "entitled" to more than everybody else, and their high standing -- for life.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

What's It All About?

These protesters are the 1% -- and not the 99% they claim to be -- of the country they think should be run for their exclusive benefit.

First of all, 99% of the people are not struggling to get by -- but the lowest 20% probably are. But that's not what this protest is about. It is about the upper 49% using the lower 50% to protect and even increase their "middle class" entitlements -- and conning the easily misled into believing that if they are allowed to tax the mythical rich, more money can go for government (union) workers pay increases and benefits -- and not really to the actual poor. That's why the unions let these "wannabes" do all the dirty work and stick out their necks and futures, while they show up at noon to claim credit that "their" movement and support is growing -- and they have no shame and compunction at doing so.

And now their so called movement, is spreading to the college campuses, where the students are going into horrendous debt because of the demands of their university professors and administrators to be paid as much as Warren Buffett -- as proof that Americans value education at any cost, and support these (upper) middle class bureaucrats in the luxury they think they should be accustomed to -- which the protesters can only dream about, and have no idea of their role and complicity in their own exploitation.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Discrimination is NOT Prejudice (but actually its solution)

"Discrimination" is not always wrong -- but is in fact, the basis of intelligence and successful adaptation (living) in one's environment. Most discriminations, in fact, are not only "right," but necessary, if one is to make one's life better for oneself, as well as the community at large. That requires every member to think for themselves (as well as for others), by discriminating the appropriate responses -- rather than not thinking for oneself (or anyone else) because they have been educated that no discriminations should ever be made.

It is not that all discriminations should not be made -- but only that discriminations should not be based on prejudice of the wrong (invalid) things -- but urinating, defecating, camping and driving everybody away from the public spaces, is a valid reason for adopting rules (laws) against those who do such things -- instead of protesting against all the rich billionaires that Occupy Honolulu, as though there was equal danger and wrong.

The peculiarity of Hawaii, is that the people are educated and conditioned not to think for themselves, but merely to repeat what their "teachers" tell them to as the only truth possible -- regardless of whether individuals can discover better ways to do things, that actually solve and eliminate the problems -- rather than just repeating history, as the only way things can be done in the future (forever) -- as though that made it paradise, because the lawmakers guarantee, that things will never change.