Actor Ben Affleck does not own a slave-enhanced cotton
plantation,
though he may as well, in light of all the hoopla regarding his ancestry. When the PBS TV program, "Finding Your
Roots" researched Affleck's ancestry and discovered that his mother's
history included a slave owner several generations back, Affleck asked that
this little tidbit be omitted from the final edit. The now Affleck-tarnished show yielded to
Affleck's request, but the information went public anyway, causing a public
relations stir, requiring the "embarrassed" Affleck to come forward
and apologize for his attempt to time-machine historical fact.
Affleck's
ill-fated attempt at historical erasure couldn't have come along at a better
time, for among the wealthy and influential in our little American
transformative oligarchy, we also have one Hillary Rodham Clinton, who famously
attempted to shape-shift the truth via several statements recently -- her
non-immigrant immigrant grandparents, for instance. And Clinton is a woman who knows how to
manipulate history with verve -- why have missing government property e-mails
stinking up the house when you can just destroy the whole server? Manipulate history to your liking.
I'm writing this
a couple of days before a new episode of NBC's "Saturday Night Live"
appears, so I've no idea what their writers plan for an opener. But I have a pretty good feeling that they
won't open the show with a satirical piece called "Ben Affleck's Cotton
Plantation," because he's one of the "good guys," the same good-guy
variety of which they fancy themselves.
Dr. Oz continues
to be attacked by white-coat zombies among The Walking Med: No sooner had Dr. Mehmet Oz defended himself
against a herd of old medical cranks on his TV show Thursday, now a group of
professionals from Oz's own Columbia University want him subdued. For one thing, they complain that they are
constantly spending time attempting to rebut his statements. Well, too bad, that's their self-pity party.
Oz’s primary
concern in this affair is his staunch opinion that foods produced via
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should be publicly labeled as such. Conglomerate food entities, on the other
hand, are strictly against the public’s right to know this little factoid – and
millions of dollars have flowed and continue to flow to Congress to make sure
they get their way. If there was ever a
case to be made for dropping lobbyists from tall buildings, this would appear a
prime example. The oopsie fear here is that we just don’t yet know the
effects of GMOs on human health.
Oz has every
right to express his views under the First Amendment, but one suspects his
colleagues are a tad too consumed with jealousy or too boozed up with American
Medical Association hocus-pocus to allow him to go gently into that good night
of alternative medicine.
That's long been
a good question -- what makes the AMA or other medical organizations believe
they've the right and responsibility to control doctors and guide everybody's
health care? And what has health care
become? Its progression has morphed the
patient into a mere blood sample, a potted office plant whose general
practitioner doctor is often forced to worship a computer screen, like it or
not, bowing to numbers from the lab and required to honor the pharmaceutical
corporate mentality by prescribing this toxin or that toxin.
In years past,
I've seen older doctors on the verge of retirement, who opt to sit in their
chairs and prescribe meds, barely interested in examining patients as
individuals. Then came a brief period of
enlightenment when the doctor-patient relationship was popular and each
listened to what the other had to say.
How times quickly changed! Now,
young doctors are educated in pleasing the drug companies first -- as nutritional
education, the most essential knowledge of all, remains on the fringe. So, we've come full circle -- from the old doc who lapses into little more
than a drug pusher, to the bright young physician who, under corporate
pressures involving big pharma, hospital administrations and other medical
providers has been groomed to stick to one-size-fits-all lab work and perform
fixes with poison pills and the like.
Yes, medications are important, but there's much to be said for the way
medicine was practiced in days gone by -- and in other cultures around the
world.
I vote for Dr.
Oz and others who dare to be different by keeping us informed, because we've
already seen instances of harm caused by doing everything by the damned book of
regimentation encouraged through medical organizations and their paid-off
buddies in Congress. Our personal
versions of health care should be our choice, even though choices always offer
good and bad options. It's your body and
your family, folks, not theirs.
Michael Brown’s family sues everybody but the
kitchen sink
in Ferguson. This is no surprise when
you realize what kind of people you’re dealing with, and these folks are
interesting. Here, let me save the court
costs – Brown was a thief, a bully and a thug who tried to murder the police
officer who legally approached him. Even
Holder’s generally screwed up Dept. of Justice (when it comes to racial issues)
was forced to admit it could find no fault on the officer’s part. But the Brown family and its attorney,
apparently born to litigate, are off and running. When will we get around to charging the
losers in frivolous lawsuits for all court costs? Around the same time Congress tackles tort
reform.
Go Hillary, go! Go away, far, far, far away! And take Jeb with you.
