the store is open.
living earth herbs is taking over the world.
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Shamelessly lifted from Robert Anton Wilson's site:
"Bush's War on the Sick and Dying
13 Hephaistis 82 p.s.U.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
United States Constitution, 10th Amendment
As most of you know by now, my photo went all over the country as the first patient to receive medical cannabis from the city officials of Santa Cruz on September 17; I assume the organizers pushed me up front because of my age, my white beard, my wheelchair and my general resemblence to a colorful Gothic ruin.
I've had a lot of experence with civil disobedience, dating back to Vietnam War days, but this occasion seems unique, in that the mayor, the former mayor, the city council and various other local officials participated [not as patients, but as supporters.] In fact, we all acted perfectly in accord with local and state law: Californians voted to legalize medical cannabis by a 55% majority, and Santa Cruz County by a 75% majority. The TSOG [Tsarist Occupation Government], however, has thrown the tenth amendment into the same garbage heap with the first nine. The Bill of Rights exists now only as a historical curiosity, although you can still find it in the back of a good fat dictionary.
I suggest that you check this out by looking into your own dictionary before His Royal Fraudulency George II has this subversive document removed and thrown down the memory hole.
What will Tsarism in America engulf and devour next? Having invaded medicine -- not only in the present case, but in banning stem cell research-- will the TSOG move on physics next and allow the pointy-headed bureaucrats to decide which of the eight theories of quantum mechanics professors may discuss in class? Will they issue dogmas about mathematical set theory? Will they raid Chinese neighborhoods, indefinetly "detaining" those who prefer herbal meds to allopathic ones? Nothing seems impossible: Tsarist governments use a special logic with deuces, eights and one-eyed jacks wild.
I wonder how many of the serfs even remember that the founders intended to create a free country here."
"Bush's War on the Sick and Dying
13 Hephaistis 82 p.s.U.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
United States Constitution, 10th Amendment
As most of you know by now, my photo went all over the country as the first patient to receive medical cannabis from the city officials of Santa Cruz on September 17; I assume the organizers pushed me up front because of my age, my white beard, my wheelchair and my general resemblence to a colorful Gothic ruin.
I've had a lot of experence with civil disobedience, dating back to Vietnam War days, but this occasion seems unique, in that the mayor, the former mayor, the city council and various other local officials participated [not as patients, but as supporters.] In fact, we all acted perfectly in accord with local and state law: Californians voted to legalize medical cannabis by a 55% majority, and Santa Cruz County by a 75% majority. The TSOG [Tsarist Occupation Government], however, has thrown the tenth amendment into the same garbage heap with the first nine. The Bill of Rights exists now only as a historical curiosity, although you can still find it in the back of a good fat dictionary.
I suggest that you check this out by looking into your own dictionary before His Royal Fraudulency George II has this subversive document removed and thrown down the memory hole.
What will Tsarism in America engulf and devour next? Having invaded medicine -- not only in the present case, but in banning stem cell research-- will the TSOG move on physics next and allow the pointy-headed bureaucrats to decide which of the eight theories of quantum mechanics professors may discuss in class? Will they issue dogmas about mathematical set theory? Will they raid Chinese neighborhoods, indefinetly "detaining" those who prefer herbal meds to allopathic ones? Nothing seems impossible: Tsarist governments use a special logic with deuces, eights and one-eyed jacks wild.
I wonder how many of the serfs even remember that the founders intended to create a free country here."
Monday, January 13, 2003
HYPERACTIVITY & ANTIBIOTICS
178 of 383 hyperactive children (46.6%) were found to have used three or more courses of antibiotics during the first three years of life, compared with 42 of 148 (28.4%) non hyperactive children. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been associated with poor absorption of micronutrients and/or peptides. The children with high antibiotic use were found to have lower levels of zinc, calcium, chromium and selenium, possibly due to the harmful effect of antibiotics on microflora in the digestive system (Nutrit. Pract. 2001, 3(3) 12). Promising results were found following the treatment of 36 children with ADHD with ginkgo biloba and ginseng, with a 74% improvement in ADHD and hyperactive-impulse activity and a 44% improvement in social problems after one month of use. (J. Psychiatry & Neuroscience 2001, 26(3) 221-8).
--posted by Robert Sesnon to the American Herbalist's Guild forum
178 of 383 hyperactive children (46.6%) were found to have used three or more courses of antibiotics during the first three years of life, compared with 42 of 148 (28.4%) non hyperactive children. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been associated with poor absorption of micronutrients and/or peptides. The children with high antibiotic use were found to have lower levels of zinc, calcium, chromium and selenium, possibly due to the harmful effect of antibiotics on microflora in the digestive system (Nutrit. Pract. 2001, 3(3) 12). Promising results were found following the treatment of 36 children with ADHD with ginkgo biloba and ginseng, with a 74% improvement in ADHD and hyperactive-impulse activity and a 44% improvement in social problems after one month of use. (J. Psychiatry & Neuroscience 2001, 26(3) 221-8).
--posted by Robert Sesnon to the American Herbalist's Guild forum
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Ya'll head on down to the Onion's A.V. Club to hear Berke Breathed go on about an unnamed student who secretly released hundreds of baby alligators into nearby Lake Travis now, y'hear?
short deconstruction of the recent "echinacea doesn't work" study done at the University of Wisconsin:
a) relatively small dose of 1 gram/day. I would probably use doses more in the lines of 3-5 gram/day for an acute cold, probably even starting out with a higher dose the first day. Echinacea, when used in an acute situation, is often used FREQUENTLY and IN HIGH DOSES. This is how I personally use it. This is how many herbalists that I respect and honor use it. This is how I was taught. While not *all* herbalists use it like this, I would venture to say that enough of them do to make this low dose highly suspect. also ENTIRELY agree with Michael Tierra's statement that Echinacea should be reserved for "the nasty stuff", and that a simple cold can be handled much more effectively with other herbs. How about a good diaphoretic, something to support the mucous membranes, and plenty of fluids and rest?
b) Shaklee herbs? They used Shaklee herbs? Like the same folk that make cleaning products? Um. Personally, I don't know about their herbs. Never heard of them. Didn't know that they even made herbs. Which tells me that they probably don't interface with the herbal community at large very much. Which makes me wonder....Besides, I also have a long-standing rule of thumb: Buy your medicines from companies that make medicines. If a company is totally focused on making quality herbal medicines, chances are, they'll be better than a company trying to do eight other disparate product lines concurrently. I would hesitate to buy a car from a company that started out making paper products.
c) Capsules weren't just echinacea. They also contained small amounts of thyme, peppermint, and citric acid. Has anyone done research on what the volatile aromatics in thyme and pepperment may do to echinacea's polysaccharides when stored for a long period of time in a capsule? Anyone? Anyone? While I don't think that adding thyme and peppermint would necessarily create a problem, it surely does change the study from one on "echinacea" to one on an "echinacea-containing compound". How 'bout traditional use? Is there any traditional use to support the addition of these herbs? Last time I checked thyme didn't grow on the Plains. I doubt very much that someone would formulate a study on aspirin, use one of the ubiquitous aspirin-caffeine combos, and report it as a study done on aspirin.
d) The activity report on the constituents did not test for polysaccharides or essential oil content.
It is definitely an interesting study. But I do feel that it could have been a much *better* study had they chosen to get more input from the professional herbalists' community. Once again, a lack of communication between "conventional" researchers and us "wacky herbalists" meant dollars misspent and a study that doesn't actually give us all that much information.
a) relatively small dose of 1 gram/day. I would probably use doses more in the lines of 3-5 gram/day for an acute cold, probably even starting out with a higher dose the first day. Echinacea, when used in an acute situation, is often used FREQUENTLY and IN HIGH DOSES. This is how I personally use it. This is how many herbalists that I respect and honor use it. This is how I was taught. While not *all* herbalists use it like this, I would venture to say that enough of them do to make this low dose highly suspect. also ENTIRELY agree with Michael Tierra's statement that Echinacea should be reserved for "the nasty stuff", and that a simple cold can be handled much more effectively with other herbs. How about a good diaphoretic, something to support the mucous membranes, and plenty of fluids and rest?
b) Shaklee herbs? They used Shaklee herbs? Like the same folk that make cleaning products? Um. Personally, I don't know about their herbs. Never heard of them. Didn't know that they even made herbs. Which tells me that they probably don't interface with the herbal community at large very much. Which makes me wonder....Besides, I also have a long-standing rule of thumb: Buy your medicines from companies that make medicines. If a company is totally focused on making quality herbal medicines, chances are, they'll be better than a company trying to do eight other disparate product lines concurrently. I would hesitate to buy a car from a company that started out making paper products.
c) Capsules weren't just echinacea. They also contained small amounts of thyme, peppermint, and citric acid. Has anyone done research on what the volatile aromatics in thyme and pepperment may do to echinacea's polysaccharides when stored for a long period of time in a capsule? Anyone? Anyone? While I don't think that adding thyme and peppermint would necessarily create a problem, it surely does change the study from one on "echinacea" to one on an "echinacea-containing compound". How 'bout traditional use? Is there any traditional use to support the addition of these herbs? Last time I checked thyme didn't grow on the Plains. I doubt very much that someone would formulate a study on aspirin, use one of the ubiquitous aspirin-caffeine combos, and report it as a study done on aspirin.
d) The activity report on the constituents did not test for polysaccharides or essential oil content.
It is definitely an interesting study. But I do feel that it could have been a much *better* study had they chosen to get more input from the professional herbalists' community. Once again, a lack of communication between "conventional" researchers and us "wacky herbalists" meant dollars misspent and a study that doesn't actually give us all that much information.
Sunday, January 05, 2003
Now that I'm leaving, it seems like I should give ya'll a little personal tour before I'm gone--also to remind me what I love about this city. Without further ado:
If you're coming into the city for the first time, by far the best way in is Interstate 290, which dumps you directly onto Congress Avenue. You go under the Post Office and into downtown, past the Harold Washington Library (which I liked, but than an architect friend of mine pooh-poohed it as a "big uninteresting box", and so I looked at it from a few angles and decided he was right, but then I was driving into town via I-290 and I looked up and saw the enormous copper roof ornaments and I was exhilarated again and so I decided that from certain angles, I still love it.) You will dead-end at the Buckingham Fountain, which you already have seen if you've ever watched the opening titles of "Married with Children". Take a left, go to Monroe (notJackson, the lights are timed better if you go to Monroe) and get on the Drive going North. You can stop at Navy Pier if you're feeling touristy, but I never did except once with my sister, to visit her girl scout leader who worked at the Chicago Children's Museum.
But if you're me, you'll cruise on past, around the huge curve by the beach, and get off (to be continued...)
if you are going to change
how are you going to change?
will you wake up one morning--that's it--and never miss buying an iris again with its greenpurplegold or will you get old and boring cranky bugging your children? I want to learn to weave constantly incorporating the new and exciting rather than doing my best imitation of an aging leather book stiff with age and cracked with disuse.
wake up and walk to a cliff and throw ribbons and cheeses to the ocean below.
lecithin
how are you going to change?
will you wake up one morning--that's it--and never miss buying an iris again with its greenpurplegold or will you get old and boring cranky bugging your children? I want to learn to weave constantly incorporating the new and exciting rather than doing my best imitation of an aging leather book stiff with age and cracked with disuse.
wake up and walk to a cliff and throw ribbons and cheeses to the ocean below.
lecithin
Friday, January 03, 2003
super whoopty-cool
From the Vatican. Whatever you may say about the Church, they sure have a lotta cool books.
This small exhibit does serve to remind us how old the European herbal tradition is. Most of those plants--if not all--are plants still used by myself and others trained in the Western tradition. Not to mention that a lot of the common plants like dandelion and motherwort are used wherever they grow.
From the Vatican. Whatever you may say about the Church, they sure have a lotta cool books.
This small exhibit does serve to remind us how old the European herbal tradition is. Most of those plants--if not all--are plants still used by myself and others trained in the Western tradition. Not to mention that a lot of the common plants like dandelion and motherwort are used wherever they grow.
Monday, December 30, 2002
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Thursday, December 19, 2002
For those of you living in isolation tanks, the Chinese government has decided to dam the Yangtze river. I think we might ask the dragon first.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
The unthinkable happened today.
For those of you who know me, I have long hair. Like, REALLY long hair. I can sit on it. And I *like* my long hair. It's kind of a signature piece.
I'm a bit weird about haircuts, as for some reason I have had several horrible experiences with hairstylists thinking that "three inches" means "at least a foot". So I go infrequently to get my hair cut.
I went today. I asked for 3-4 inches to be taken off. She whacked off nine inches of hair.
NINE INCHES.
NINE............INCHES.
My hair is now just below my shoulder blades. When I saw it I immediately went into shock. Right now I'm coping by very pointedly NOT THINKING ABOUT IT.
I get ten points for not bursting into tears and going into foetal position on the floof of the hair salon.
So if you ever ask me, "Why don't you get your hair cut?"--this is why.
For those of you who know me, I have long hair. Like, REALLY long hair. I can sit on it. And I *like* my long hair. It's kind of a signature piece.
I'm a bit weird about haircuts, as for some reason I have had several horrible experiences with hairstylists thinking that "three inches" means "at least a foot". So I go infrequently to get my hair cut.
I went today. I asked for 3-4 inches to be taken off. She whacked off nine inches of hair.
NINE INCHES.
NINE............INCHES.
My hair is now just below my shoulder blades. When I saw it I immediately went into shock. Right now I'm coping by very pointedly NOT THINKING ABOUT IT.
I get ten points for not bursting into tears and going into foetal position on the floof of the hair salon.
So if you ever ask me, "Why don't you get your hair cut?"--this is why.
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