Thursday, October 4, 2012

NOSTALGIE DE LA BOUE

by Ed Shacklee

Mitt Mobile in the Final Stretch

To show his foggy visions clearer,
Mitt Romney hogs the rearview mirror

and puts the “my” back in myopia
by looking backwards at utopia.

Perhaps the reverse gear is needed,
but every year that dream’s receded

and as the future nears it worsens
for awfully tense, past perfect persons.


Ed Shacklee is a public defender who represents young people in the District of Columbia.  His poems have appeared in The Flea, Light Quarterly, Shot Glass Journal and Tilt-a-Whirl, among other places.
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DIRTY PEOPLE IN BUSINESS DRESS

by Martha Deed


NACO, Ariz., Oct 3, 2012 - Investigators were scouring a rugged area near the U.S.-Mexico line looking for evidence in the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent. Nicholas Ivie and a colleague were on patrol in the desert near Naco, about 100 miles from Tucson, when gunfire broke out shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Border Patrol.
. . . The last Border Patrol agent fatally shot on duty was Brian Terry, who died in a shootout with bandits near the border in December 2010. The Border Patrol station in Naco, where the two agents shot Tuesday were stationed, was recently named after Terry. --Newsday/AP


a border patrol officer
a father’s son
rides one-lane dirt park paths
lights out on cliff edges
500-ft drops at midnight –
darkest nights the best
for finding backpacks,
shoes, human “sign” –
the moonlit nights the worst
for border hopping
in the high mountain desert
the worst for getting home alive

When you study medicine
every runny nose
is a sign of this week’s disease
and if a Border Patrol officer
patrolling a national park,
bird songs, butterflies,
and flowers are no longer
noticed or enjoyed, replaced by
surveilling –
each unauthorized path
each piece of litter
in the national forest:
suggests a possible crime

the legal tourists come
they are warned against
scorpions, rattlesnakes
lightning, floods and bears
and dirty people in business dress
crossing the mountains
only the latter need be reported

Montezuma Pass, elev. 6575,
Near Naco, Arizona


Author’s note: One of my stepsons was a Border Patrol Agent in 2008. He was stationed at Naco, AZ where both Brian Terry and now Nick Ivie were killed.  And -- he worked with both men.  Step-son resigned from the Border Patrol several years ago when a promise to move him to a less dangerous post did not happen. His father and I visited him in Naco, and I wrote a poem about it at the time.

Martha Deed lives in North Tonawanda, NY.  Her most recent book is The Last Collaboration, originally published online (Furtherfield, 2012), and now available in book form.  The Last Collaboration is a mixed-genre story of her daughter Millie Niss's encounters with health care in the final year of her life, presented as Millie would have wanted it to be done.  Companion piece to City Bird: Selected Poems (1991-2009) (BlazeVox, 2010) by Millie Niss, edited by Martha Deed. Martha Deed has previously published at The New Verse News.

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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

HOOKED ON DEBATE

Poem by Charles Frederickson
Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote


Pollute-ions denominated lost cause devoted
Keynote speech denoted liars debarred
Unconventional promises delighted AC/DC defused
Bullyrag jeer smear fear demeaned

Tripping over two-too right defeat
Luxury yacht sinking thickset defog
Anything but de tooth decay
Gravy train arriving before departing

Rednecks decapitated ballooning egos deflated
47% detox IRS taxes defiled
One% exposing themselves nakedness debriefed
Hostile polemics fake smiles decried

Mass-media censorship journalists feel depressed
Fiction writers described facts decomposed
Softball players debased flunkies degraded
10S pros defaulted wannabes defamed

Able bodied cruising semen debunked
Stealthy wealthy organ donors delivered
Dirty laundry decreased depressed depleted
Models deposed lonesome cowboys deranged


No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .
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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Eight Questions For Your Cancer Doctor!



Here are eight questions to consider when you are discussing cancer treatment options with your doctors.

1. Is it alright if I tape this conversation?
When life and death decisions are at stake, conversations with oncologists and other physicians take on enormous importance. In addition, sometimes these conversations take place when the doctor is very busy. Given the subject, the hurried bedside manner of some physicians, and the emotional intensity for the patient and family, it can be very hard to listen, understand, and ask appropriate questions. Tape recording important conversations with your doctor(s) about treatment options is an excellent way to provide a record so that you can: 1) concentrate on listening; 2) do not have to worry about taking notes; 3) can focus on your questions; 4) can replay and review the conversation in a less stressful environment such as your own home to fully comprehend what the physician communicated.

An added benefit is that recording the conversation can facilitate more time with the doctor. When the oncologist knows the conversation is taped they may actually give you a few extra minutes. Furthermore, it provides an advantage to both you and your doctors if there is ever a question later about what was or was not promised.
Do not secretly tape record anyone. In many jurisdictions this is against the law. You should always obtain permission by telling your doctor(s) that you want a tape recording of the meeting/consultation so that you can review it later or you wish to share the conversation with a family member who could not be present at the meeting. In fact, it is always a good idea to use the first few seconds of the recording to have all the parties acknowledge that the meeting is being recorded with their permission.

2. Did you send my pathology (report and slides) to another hospital for a second opinion?
The pathology of your tumor cells tells pathologists whether you actually have cancer and what kind. Having a second look/opinion by another pathologist from another hospital helps ensure that you have been properly diagnosed. There have been unfortunate situations when patients have been treated inappropriately because the wrong kind of cancer was diagnosed. In many hospitals it is standard practice to "send the slides out" for a second opinion. You may want to check to ensure this step was taken in your case and find out who rendered the second opinion and what they concluded.

3. Do you have any financial or research interest in this treatment you are recommending? For example, are you being paid by a drug company when you prescribe these drugs? Do you consult for the drug company that makes these drugs?
Some oncologists have financial arrangements with various drug makers or other financial incentives that could be construed as a conflict of interest. You should find out whether your doctor(s) has any financial or research interest in recommending a certain treatment.

4. How many patients have you treated with my exact same cancer? Same age and same cancer? Which treatments did you use? Are any of the patients still alive? Can I speak with them?
You want to get a good idea of what the oncologist's experience is with the various treatments being recommended. You should find out how many patients (your age with the exact same cancer) they have treated with each therapy. Ask if you can speak to these other patients. Other patients (like you) who have been administered the same therapy by the same oncologist(s) can provide valuable insight into what to expect.

5. Did any patients have side-effects from the treatment? What were they? What was the worse side-effect? Did anyone die from the treatment, not the cancer?
Some patients do not die from their cancer, but die from the treatment. You should ask questions to learn how toxic the therapy is.

6. Are these drugs FDA approved for treating my cancer?
Many cancer drugs are not FDA-approved for the use for which they are prescribed. (This is called "off-label" use.) In fact, some drugs that are widely used for a particular cancer may never have been approved for safety or efficacy for that use by the FDA. It is valuable to know if any of the drugs the oncologist intends to prescribe would be used "off label" and if so, why the oncologist is comfortable with that use.

7. Can you show me where the survival information comes from? Is it reported in the peer-reviewed published medical literature? Can you give me a copy of the article?
Cancer Monthly provides survival information from the medical/scientific literature - journals your doctors should be familiar with. The oncologist should be able to support any survival/prognosis claim they may make with data or published studies that they can share with you. Be wary, if they can not support their claims of a potential cure with medical studies or with examples of other patients they have treated.

8. What is my prognosis with no treatment?
Comparisons are very seldom made between the results of a clinical trial and those patients who received no adjuvant treatment (i.e. no therapy beyond surgery). When survival and quality of life comparisons are made, they are usually made between two or more treatments, not between treatment and no treatment. It is very difficult, therefore, for an oncologist to objectively answer the question how long did the treated patients live and what was their quality of life compared to those who received no adjuvant therapy. Nonetheless, it may be of interest to ask your doctor for a reference/study that discusses this. Be advised that such studies may not be available.

Monday, October 1, 2012

LOOPHOLES

by Max Gutmann





Mr. Ryan will cut all our taxes
And not add to our deficit strain.
How's that possible? Well,
He is not gonna tell;
It would take him too long to explain.

If we voters, says Ryan, knew Romney
And his plans, he would easily gain
In the polls, where he's low.
As to what we should know:
It would take him too long to explain.

Among all of our vague politicians,
Mr. Ryan's the serious, sane
Mr. Budgeting Guy.
He's well known for it. Why?
That's increasingly hard to explain.


Max Gutmann has contributed to Per Contra and other publications.
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75% Of Physicians in The World Refuse Chemotherapy for Themselves



Doctors used to think that if they drained a sick person’s blood it would purge the “evil” infection or disease right out of the body, but all that did was make the ill person much weaker, unable to remove dietary, environmental and/or metabolic acids in their body, and the patient was then highly likely to lose the battle for life, and in less time - death from systemic acid build-up.

Research using polls and questionnaires continue to show that 3 of every 4 doctors and scientists would refuse chemotherapy for themselves due to its devastating effects on the entire body and the immune system, and because of its extremely low success rate. On top of that, only 2 to 4% of all cancers even respond to chemotherapy or prove to be “life extending,” yet it is prescribed across the board for just about every kind of cancer.

Polls were taken by accomplished scientists at the McGill Cancer Center from 118 doctors who are all experts on cancer. They asked the doctors to imagine they had cancer and to choose from six different “experimental” therapies. These doctors not only denied chemo choices, but they said they wouldn’t allow their family members to go through the process either! What does that say about their true opinion of this archaic method?

These surveys are having a profound effect on the general public opinion of chemo treatments in most of Western society, especially the United States, which uses more than any nation in the world. This lack of trust by doctors is spilling over to patients, and the move towards natural alkalizing remedies is increasing, much the way it did in the early 1900′s, before the dawn of corrupt medicine, pharmaceuticals, and radiation.

An elevated level of acidic toxicity is actually the last thing any human being needs when trying to purge the body of excess acids that is causing the dis- ease, or pneumonia.

Auto-immune disorders are mainly caused when humans ingest acids from food, acidic drinking water, acidic vaccines contaminated with chemicals, acidic artificial sweeteners and acidic environmental pollution.

Chemotherapy, like the popular Cis-platinum, fills the body with horrific acidic toxins, and doctors and scientists know it, but because the FDA outlaws doctors from suggesting or prescribing vitamins, supplements, herbs and super alkalizing foods and green drinks, acid chemical therapy is still “recommended.”

The way to beat cancer is to detoxify and alkalize your body and support your host immune system, not break it down further by dousing one tumor or one organ with toxic acidic chemicals that pollute and degenerate the entire body system.

Put it this way, if an elderly person had an injured toe and it needed a cold compress to help heal it, would you submerge the senior in a freezing pool of acid water repeatedly for days, and then wait for the toe to heal?

Doctors know how absurd the ideology of chemotherapy really is, but when a society bases the bulk of its therapy on chronic care management, the doctors are silently coerced into suggesting it or finding another profession!

Chemotherapy shows very little success with common solid tumors that occur in the colon, lung and breasts, as documented over the past decade, yet somehow doctors still push “chemo” to attempt to stave off tumors and malignant growths in these areas of the body.

Could it be some extreme coincidence that although 75% of doctors would refuse chemotherapy for themselves and their family members, they still prescribe it for 75% of their patients? The costly price of chemo and the likelihood of Big Pharma “kickbacks” is screaming the answer “no.”

At best, chemotherapy should be considered alternative treatment, but for over 70 years Allopathic medicine has warped the public perception of true alkalzing medicine, so if you happen to do cancer with an acidic lifestyle and diet and your doctor tells you what to do, you may want to ask him/her if they would do the same thing for themselves and their family members.

The Lymphatic System


Within us all there is a silent system working to keep us healthy- the lymph system - our human vacum cleaner of acidic waste products. Without it our bodies would swell up like balloons, swamping our cells with stagnant acidic fluid. The lymph system's impact is so far reaching that many don't even realize that minor aches and pains caused by acid build-up, low energy or the release of excess acids via colds and flu are all due to a sluggish acidic lymph system and a compromised/suppressed immune system incapable of removing toxic acidic dietary, environmental and metabolic acids.