Tag: Health

Environment, Health, Lifestyle

Business as Usual: Lockdown Unenforced

As experts have warned and a rogue president, prioritizing reelection, has ignored, recharging the economy when Covid-19 continues to ravage has exacted a surge in the pandemic’s victims, with a new wave anticipated this fall. But Americans are its lead cause, a spoiled populace ignoring the laws governing exit from the crisis, wearing a mask in public, practicing social distancing, limiting unnecessary activity. Fifty states, … Continue reading Business as Usual: Lockdown Unenforced

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Health

The war on cancer: New treatments lock-out most of us

Death has many doorways, none of them particularly pleasant, but some downright gruesome, cancer for instance. My father died from lung cancer at age 79. That’s a generous portion of life, when you consider the mean is several years less. Nonetheless, I remember his final hours at the Veterans’ hospital in Chelsea, MA, strapped to his narrow bed, and the moaning that even massive morphine … Continue reading The war on cancer: New treatments lock-out most of us

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Health, Lifestyle, Reflections

Why I Relish Going to the Gym

For many of us, throwing off the blankets and crawling out of bed on cold winter mornings to go to the gym seems pretty dumb. I felt that way too until my pre-diabetic diagnosis several years ago which meant that if I didn’t do something about it, I might well succumb to full-blown diabetes with its many lethal complications that include heart disease, kidney failure, … Continue reading Why I Relish Going to the Gym

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Books

Being Mortal

I’ve just finished reading Being Mortal: What Matters in the End by Dr. Atul Gawande. I had read his previous Complications about life as a surgeon several years ago, greatly impressed. Both books have been highly praised, with the present book listed by the New York Times as among must reads of 2014. As a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Gawande knows what he’s writing … Continue reading Being Mortal

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Health, Reflections

A Court decision with deadly consequences

We should all be concerned about Thursday’s 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd District that the FDA needn’t consider the banning of antibiotics in healthy food producing animals. Given the growing menace of antibiotic resistant infections among humans and the inveterate use of antibiotics in the meat industry to promote weight gain or combat disease, we draw closer to a … Continue reading A Court decision with deadly consequences

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Health, Psychology, Reflections

Memory: Something to be Cherished

Do you ever get something tossing around in your head that seemingly you can’t get rid of no matter how you try?  I get that way when I listen to music, for example, the lyrics wearing down my synapses like “We had it all/ Just like Bogie and Becall/ Starring in our old late, late show/Sailing to Key Largo.”  But sometimes it’s a memory that … Continue reading Memory: Something to be Cherished

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Health, Reflections

The Fountain of Youth: We are all Ponce de Leon

As a 12-year old Florida school boy, I was introduced early to the 16th century Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, whom legend says came to Florida in quest of the Fountain of Youth.  Drink or bathe in its waters and you could be young again.  A story-line like this isn’t unique, finding its replay in myth and legend throughout the world.  Its insistence  doesn’t surprise … Continue reading The Fountain of Youth: We are all Ponce de Leon

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People, Psychology, Reflections

The Smile that Hides the Soul

I have a number of books that supposedly clue you into discerning the personalities of people based on their physical gestures, things like hands on hips,  the turned up corners of the mouth, the wrinkling of the forehead or lifting of the eyebrows,  etc.  The problem is that body language can differ from one culture to another.  While close spatial contact with lots of touching … Continue reading The Smile that Hides the Soul

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