Immer wenn du meinst es geht nicht mehr
Kommt von irgendwo ein Lichtlein her
[Just when you think you can't go on,
Somewhere a little light will come on.]
A glimpse of
Me and
another glimpse
of Me
Irreverent
Self-Portrait Continued. Click your way in to see some pictures of
Timbuktu. Yes, Timbuktu exists. The term "Timbuktu" is not merely a
metaphor for a never-never place; it stands for
a real place in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Sort of the end of
the world but -- real. You will also find a rogue gallery of family
pictures, people scattered all over the place, each with a brief verbal ID
tag.
The "National Geographic" of Jan/73 carries an article about
three pockets of healthy people which its teams of investigators
discovered -- the Hunza of north-eastern Pakistan, the people who
live in the Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia and the Indians
of Villacabamba high up in the mountains of Ecuador. The re searchers
who went in to investigate could not believe what they
found -- people a hundred and older still working in the fields, grand-
fathers looking so much like their grandsons that the observers had
trouble telling them apart, an almost total absence of the degenerative
diseases that plague humanity in the developed worrld -- no heart
disease, no diabetes, no cancer, no arthritis. When they had sifted
through and evaluated the evidence, they came to the conclusion
that the settings in which these people lived all but compelled them
to practice a lifestyle that makes for good health. Living in mountains,
where practically every step they take means mountain climbing, they
get enough exercise without even trying. Their food is organic food,
not corrupted by chemical fertilizers or insecticides. They work hard
but they also get enough rest, their nights not having been turned
into day by the advent of electric light. [To be continued after the break]
Laughter is the best medicine. If you think you need a dose of it,
click
Laughter,
More
Laughter. and
Yet more Laughter....
Bilbo and Gollum and
The
Hobbit Riddle Page
Healthy people anywhere, individuals or groups like the Hunza, owe their good health not to the ministrations of Western Medicine but to a wholesome lifestyle. Healthy people, by and large, do not consume drugs. It is the sick who do, and often the drugs make them sicker. All-too often the drugs people take to get better kill them. A recent University of Toronto study comes to the conclusion that drugs -- legitimate drugs, not street drugs -- kill at least 100,000 people a year in the US. I heard the man responsible for the study interviewed on radio. He readily admitted that this was little more than the tip of the iceberg. For one, the study was based on the number of drug deaths reported in 39 major US hospitals. It did not concern itself with drug-induced deaths that occurred at home. Moreover, doctors are not required by any law to report such deaths. If they report them, they report them voluntarily. Impossible to estimate how many such deaths go unreported.
The study made no attempt to estimate the number of drug-induced deaths that are not recognized as such. The researcher readily conceded that the figure of 100,000 would more than double if all deaths attributable to drugs could be accounted for. Soon after the Canadian study was published, I saw a piece of news in the German press, which reported that drugs kill about 8,000 people annually in Germany and seriously harm at least another 80,000. That's obviously gross under-reporting. If drugs kill more than 100,000 a year in the US, one-third of that would represent a reasonable figure for Germany, the population of the US being about three times that of Germany.
Medical literature records a number of situations where doctors went on strike. Contrary to expectations, the people thus deprived of their doctors' services did not seem any the worse for it. Let's look at just one such situation. In 1972, the doctors of Los Angeles County in California withheld their services from all but emergency cases. When the strike was over and investigators went in to assess the damage, they discovered, much to their surprise, that there had been no damage. Most people had suffered little, if any, inconvenience during the slow-down. And they discovered something even more surprising -- that the death rate had gone down in the county while the doctors were off the job. The investigators attributed the drop in the death rate to fewer drugs and less surgery.
I heard David Suzuki say on television not long ago that about
one-third of North Americans have turned to alternative
medicine. They can't all be crazy. If you want to find out what it
means to live so that you won't get sick again, just do a little
browsing in HOW TO BE YOUR OWN BEST DOCTOR.
Immer wenn du meinst es geht nicht mehr
Kommt von irgendwo ein Lichtlein her
If you have a moment, drop into my Reading Corner, where you will find things like "Time Magazine," issues old and new; "Der Spiegel" and a good many other things. Or join me for a stroll along Philosopher's Walk
Click here to sample some Proverbs and Sayings from all over the world. One is so used to proverbs in one's own language that one does not give them much thought. Proverbs from other languages and/or cultures may touch on familiar themes in ways so strikingly new as to catch one's full attention. Here are two of my favorites, one from Hausaland (West Africa) and one from Saudi Arabia. The first one, "Ba ruwanka," is the Hausa way of saying "This is none of your business." Literally it means "This is not your water." How so very appropriate for Hausaland, much of which is semi-desert, where water is more precious than precious.
The second one, "The son of a duck is a floater," is the Saudi way of
saying "Like father like son." Though I have heard or talked about the
Saudi version scores of times, I still grin when I think of it. In German,
by the way, the same proverb comes in yet a different metaphoric garb;
to wit, "Der Apfel faellt nicht weit vom Stamm" -- an apple does not
fall far from the tree,
Here is one of my favorite poems.
If this little taste of poetry has whetted your appetite for more, there is a veritable feast waiting for you at the Poetry Corner,
Ready for some music? Click your way into the Music Store, where you'll find more music than you can listen to in a year -- country music; pop, old and young; music from films and classical music....
![[Nova Scotia Flag]](nsa1flag.gif)
Below you can find out what's happening in World Tennis and World Soccer.
Come, visit Nova Scotia, Canada's Ocean Play Ground. To get your pre-trip
briefing, click Nova
Scotia. A quick look at the difference between High Tide and Low Tide in
the Bay of Funday might persuade you to come. The Bay of Funday separates
Nova Scotia from New Brunswick. I am talking about the highest tides in
the world. The difference between HIGH and LOW can be up to 17 meters.
That's something you might want to see for yourself. Should you
with to branch out further, drop into Canadiana
If, when you are done with Nova Scotia, you have a little time left, you
might want to send a friend a postcard.
Click here to find out what's doing in the Valentine Corner.
I find the following collection of Court Room Howlers hilarious. See what you think of them.
The Depot of Links as yet not placed where they belong is nevertheless worth looking into.
aj086@chebucto.ns.ca
