Reformed Boogers
Someone has asked what is so reformed about picking your nose and eating donuts. The answer is picking your nose fulfills the duties associated with the sixth commandment, and eating donuts violates it. Please see the Larger Catechism, Questions 135 and 136.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Top Things
I get a an email newsletter from Sixwise.com that often contains useful and interesting facts. Today's email had articles which shared some things I thought I would pass along. All the comments here are my own. I have provided links if you want to read the actual articles.
Picking your nose and eating it is good for your immune system. Your finger does a better job of cleaning out the boogers than a kleenex does and the bacteria in them helps to recolonize the intestinal tract and thereby boosts immue function. Next time you see your kids picking their noses, instead of scolding them for it, join them in picking your own and set the right example!
Six most common causes of automobile accidents:
1. Distracted Drivers -- looking at scenery, kids, rubbernecking, talking on the cell phone, playing with the CD player or radio.
2. Driver Fatigue
3. Drunk Driving
4. Speeding
5. Aggressive Driving -- don't be one, and if you see one, keep well back!
6. Bad Weather
The Six Most Unhealthy Foods You Should Avoid
1. Soda Pop -- I can't understand people who buy this stuff for their kids! One teaspoon of sugar has the ability to shut down your white blood cells for about 5 hours. Most cans of soda contain 10 teaspoons of sugar! The sugar alone is terrible and we won't even discuss the artificial sweetners, colors, and other things in them. If you want to celebrate a party and want a reasonable alternative to pop, get some juice and add unflavored and unsweetened carbonated spring water to it instead.
2. Potatoe Chips and French Fries -- They are saturated with acrylamide, a highly toxic and carcinogenic compound, and transfatty acids which destroy your health through oxidized cholesterol.
3. Doughnuts -- "When it comes to health, the only thing good about them is the hole," said Carla Wolper, nutritionist at the New York Obesity Research Center.
4. Commercially Made Baked Goods -- extremely high in transfats because they are made with margarines and hydrogenated vegetable oils in order to extend their shelf life.
5. Luncheon Meats and Hot Dogs -- Nitrates and Nitrites -- these can cause pancreatic cancer in those who eat them in large quantities.
6. Canned Soup -- I won't bring a lawsuit on myself by mentioning brand names, but read the labels. Most soups contain MSG and way more salt than is good for you.
The Six Worst Lifestyle Choices You Could Make
This belongs to the "well duh" category. But people indulge anyhow.
1. Overeating
2. Smoking
3. Drinking and Driving
4. Living on Fast Food
5. Not Exercising
6. Living with Stress (and not doing anything to deal with it)
On a more somber note, the recent murder of pregnant wife and mother, Liana White, in Edmonton, Alberta has highlighted the fact that murder has become the number one reason for maternal mortality in North America. This surprises and shocks many, including journalists, who like to think of pregnancy as a joyous time and the pregnant mother as being offlimits when it comes to harm. But then, we used to think that about babies in the womb...
I get a an email newsletter from Sixwise.com that often contains useful and interesting facts. Today's email had articles which shared some things I thought I would pass along. All the comments here are my own. I have provided links if you want to read the actual articles.
Picking your nose and eating it is good for your immune system. Your finger does a better job of cleaning out the boogers than a kleenex does and the bacteria in them helps to recolonize the intestinal tract and thereby boosts immue function. Next time you see your kids picking their noses, instead of scolding them for it, join them in picking your own and set the right example!
Six most common causes of automobile accidents:
1. Distracted Drivers -- looking at scenery, kids, rubbernecking, talking on the cell phone, playing with the CD player or radio.
2. Driver Fatigue
3. Drunk Driving
4. Speeding
5. Aggressive Driving -- don't be one, and if you see one, keep well back!
6. Bad Weather
The Six Most Unhealthy Foods You Should Avoid
1. Soda Pop -- I can't understand people who buy this stuff for their kids! One teaspoon of sugar has the ability to shut down your white blood cells for about 5 hours. Most cans of soda contain 10 teaspoons of sugar! The sugar alone is terrible and we won't even discuss the artificial sweetners, colors, and other things in them. If you want to celebrate a party and want a reasonable alternative to pop, get some juice and add unflavored and unsweetened carbonated spring water to it instead.
2. Potatoe Chips and French Fries -- They are saturated with acrylamide, a highly toxic and carcinogenic compound, and transfatty acids which destroy your health through oxidized cholesterol.
3. Doughnuts -- "When it comes to health, the only thing good about them is the hole," said Carla Wolper, nutritionist at the New York Obesity Research Center.
4. Commercially Made Baked Goods -- extremely high in transfats because they are made with margarines and hydrogenated vegetable oils in order to extend their shelf life.
5. Luncheon Meats and Hot Dogs -- Nitrates and Nitrites -- these can cause pancreatic cancer in those who eat them in large quantities.
6. Canned Soup -- I won't bring a lawsuit on myself by mentioning brand names, but read the labels. Most soups contain MSG and way more salt than is good for you.
The Six Worst Lifestyle Choices You Could Make
This belongs to the "well duh" category. But people indulge anyhow.
1. Overeating
2. Smoking
3. Drinking and Driving
4. Living on Fast Food
5. Not Exercising
6. Living with Stress (and not doing anything to deal with it)
On a more somber note, the recent murder of pregnant wife and mother, Liana White, in Edmonton, Alberta has highlighted the fact that murder has become the number one reason for maternal mortality in North America. This surprises and shocks many, including journalists, who like to think of pregnancy as a joyous time and the pregnant mother as being offlimits when it comes to harm. But then, we used to think that about babies in the womb...
Monday, July 18, 2005
I May Be Crazy...
... or at least most people would think so. At an age when most men and women are enjoying an empty nest and the freedom that goes with it, I have a new baby and find myself wanting to enjoy this experience yet again.
It is not unusual to have the term "miraculous" attached to what is really a normal event: birth. This could conceivably be an argument for the innate knowledge we have of God's existence and the fact that all babies are made by Him with us as the normal and usual means.
To have a baby when you are young feels miraculous when you think of how this complicated and wonderful being came into existence from the joining together of microscopic cells. It feels even more miraculous when the body that produced this fresh and perfectly formed little being happens to have endured a lot of wear and tear and shows it.
I don't know if it will happen, but a Baker's Dozen wouldn't be a bad thing for this mom.
... or at least most people would think so. At an age when most men and women are enjoying an empty nest and the freedom that goes with it, I have a new baby and find myself wanting to enjoy this experience yet again.
It is not unusual to have the term "miraculous" attached to what is really a normal event: birth. This could conceivably be an argument for the innate knowledge we have of God's existence and the fact that all babies are made by Him with us as the normal and usual means.
To have a baby when you are young feels miraculous when you think of how this complicated and wonderful being came into existence from the joining together of microscopic cells. It feels even more miraculous when the body that produced this fresh and perfectly formed little being happens to have endured a lot of wear and tear and shows it.
I don't know if it will happen, but a Baker's Dozen wouldn't be a bad thing for this mom.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Prescription Drugs are Bad For Your Health Say Doctors...
Remember, these are all M.D.'s who are saying this.
1. "The cause of most disease is in the poisonous drugs physicians superstitiously give in order to effect a cure."- Charles E. Page, M.D.
2. "Medicines are of subordinate importance because of their very nature they can only work symptomatically."- Hans Kusche, M.D.
3. "If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity"- O.W. Holmes, (Prof. of Med. Harvard University)
4. "Drug medications consists in employing, as remedies for disease, those things which produce disease in well persons. Its materia medica is simply a lot of drugs or chemicals or dye-stuffs-- in a word, poisons. All are incompatible with vital matter; all produce disease when brought in contact in any manner with the living; all are poisons."- R.T. Trail, M.D., in a two and one half hour lecture to members of congress and the medical profession, delivered at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
5. "Every drug increases and complicates the patient's condition."- Robert Henderson, M.D.
6. "Drugs never cure disease. They merely hush the voice of nature's protest, and pull down the danger signals she erects along the pathway of transgression. Any poison taken into the system has to be reckoned with later on even though it palliates present symptoms. Pain may disappear, but the patient is left in a worse condition, though unconscious of it at the time."- Daniel. H. Kress, M.D.
7. "The greatest part of all chronic disease is created by the suppression of acute disease by drug poisoning."- Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
8. "Every educated physician knows that most diseases are not appreciably helped by medicine."- Richard C. Cabot, M.D. (Mass. Gen. Hospital)
9. "Medicine is only palliative, for back of disease lies the cause, and this cause no drug can reach."- Wier Mitchel, M.D.
10. "The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine."- William Osler, M.D.
11. "Medical practice has neither philosophy nor common sense to recommend it. In sickness the body is already loaded with impurities. By taking drug-medicines more impurities are added, thereby the case is further embarrassed and harder to cure."- Elmer Lee, M.D., Past Vice President, Academy of Medicine.
12. "Our figures show approximately four and one half million hospital admissions annually due to the adverse reactions to drugs. Further, the average hospital patient has as much as thirty percent chance, depending how long he is in, of doubling his stay due to adverse drug reactions."- Milton Silverman, M.D. (Professor of Pharmacology, University of California)
13. "Why would a patient swallow a poison because he is ill, or take that which would make a well man sick."- L.F. Kebler, M.D.
14. "What hope is there for medical science to ever become a true science when the entire structure of medical knowledge is built around the idea that there is an entity called disease which can be expelled when the right drug is found?"- John H. Tilden, M.D.
15. "The necessity of teaching mankind not to take drugs and medicines, is a duty incumbent upon all who know their uncertainty and injurious effects;and the time is not far distant when the drug system will be abandoned."- Charles Armbruster, M. D.
16. "We are prone to thinking of drug abuse in terms of the male population and illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. It may surprise you to learn that a greater problem exists with millions of women dependent on legal prescription drugs."- Robert Mendelsohn, M.D
Remember, these are all M.D.'s who are saying this.
1. "The cause of most disease is in the poisonous drugs physicians superstitiously give in order to effect a cure."- Charles E. Page, M.D.
2. "Medicines are of subordinate importance because of their very nature they can only work symptomatically."- Hans Kusche, M.D.
3. "If all the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity"- O.W. Holmes, (Prof. of Med. Harvard University)
4. "Drug medications consists in employing, as remedies for disease, those things which produce disease in well persons. Its materia medica is simply a lot of drugs or chemicals or dye-stuffs-- in a word, poisons. All are incompatible with vital matter; all produce disease when brought in contact in any manner with the living; all are poisons."- R.T. Trail, M.D., in a two and one half hour lecture to members of congress and the medical profession, delivered at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
5. "Every drug increases and complicates the patient's condition."- Robert Henderson, M.D.
6. "Drugs never cure disease. They merely hush the voice of nature's protest, and pull down the danger signals she erects along the pathway of transgression. Any poison taken into the system has to be reckoned with later on even though it palliates present symptoms. Pain may disappear, but the patient is left in a worse condition, though unconscious of it at the time."- Daniel. H. Kress, M.D.
7. "The greatest part of all chronic disease is created by the suppression of acute disease by drug poisoning."- Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
8. "Every educated physician knows that most diseases are not appreciably helped by medicine."- Richard C. Cabot, M.D. (Mass. Gen. Hospital)
9. "Medicine is only palliative, for back of disease lies the cause, and this cause no drug can reach."- Wier Mitchel, M.D.
10. "The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine."- William Osler, M.D.
11. "Medical practice has neither philosophy nor common sense to recommend it. In sickness the body is already loaded with impurities. By taking drug-medicines more impurities are added, thereby the case is further embarrassed and harder to cure."- Elmer Lee, M.D., Past Vice President, Academy of Medicine.
12. "Our figures show approximately four and one half million hospital admissions annually due to the adverse reactions to drugs. Further, the average hospital patient has as much as thirty percent chance, depending how long he is in, of doubling his stay due to adverse drug reactions."- Milton Silverman, M.D. (Professor of Pharmacology, University of California)
13. "Why would a patient swallow a poison because he is ill, or take that which would make a well man sick."- L.F. Kebler, M.D.
14. "What hope is there for medical science to ever become a true science when the entire structure of medical knowledge is built around the idea that there is an entity called disease which can be expelled when the right drug is found?"- John H. Tilden, M.D.
15. "The necessity of teaching mankind not to take drugs and medicines, is a duty incumbent upon all who know their uncertainty and injurious effects;and the time is not far distant when the drug system will be abandoned."- Charles Armbruster, M. D.
16. "We are prone to thinking of drug abuse in terms of the male population and illicit drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. It may surprise you to learn that a greater problem exists with millions of women dependent on legal prescription drugs."- Robert Mendelsohn, M.D
Monday, July 11, 2005
A Study in Contrasts
The recent terrorist attack in London has done a lot to highlight the contrasts between the American people and the British. When the Twin Towers fell in the 9/11 attack the amount of outrage, emotion, and, dare I say, hysteria, was very evident in the American people. The British people, on the other hand, maintained the stiff upper lip they are so famous for and were far more subdued, and again, dare I say, dignified in their reactions.
When I was a child, I quickly learned that if you were being picked on by a bully or teased, the best way to shorten the torture and prevent a reoccurance was to minimize reactions and assume a stoic attitude. The more you cried and wailed, the better the bully liked it and the more likely they were to try it again since they knew they could get a reaction. Maybe the Americans could learn a lesson from the British on the best way to deal with terrorism. In fact, we all could.
The recent terrorist attack in London has done a lot to highlight the contrasts between the American people and the British. When the Twin Towers fell in the 9/11 attack the amount of outrage, emotion, and, dare I say, hysteria, was very evident in the American people. The British people, on the other hand, maintained the stiff upper lip they are so famous for and were far more subdued, and again, dare I say, dignified in their reactions.
When I was a child, I quickly learned that if you were being picked on by a bully or teased, the best way to shorten the torture and prevent a reoccurance was to minimize reactions and assume a stoic attitude. The more you cried and wailed, the better the bully liked it and the more likely they were to try it again since they knew they could get a reaction. Maybe the Americans could learn a lesson from the British on the best way to deal with terrorism. In fact, we all could.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Friday, July 08, 2005
Life in the Slow Lane
Days keep whirring by with what seems like increasing rapidity. It is amazing to me that it is already four weeks since James made his debut into our family. He is starting to show signs of personhood and interaction which is a delight to everyone, and his little chicken-stick legs are starting to plump up as he puts on weight from all the freshly made mama milk he drinks.
At the same time, life has slowed down for me in a number of ways. Despite my best intentions, I have not started the kids doing anything by way of school work, other than encouraging them to continue to read books and do a few math drills here and there. My eldest boys at home have been working at the local tree nursery on and off, and today my eldest daughter at home is with her older sister, Trista, doing "girl" stuff like painting her nails, buying clothes, and getting her hair done. My tomboy just turned 14 and is growing up into a young lady. (sigh) That leaves only six kids at home and to many this would seem like a lot. But my house feels empty with only six. What it will feel like in a few years when more leave I don't like to think on.
Yesterday was "town day" as I went in to pick up my weekly supply of fresh raw milk from a local farmer who has a cow I own shares in. I also did my grocery shopping and some other errands. It took me over 8 hours to accomplish all this because of the numerous pauses needed to feed James and change his diaper. You know -- summer and babies rock. The lack of clients, no school, and no schedule that needs following allowed for a leisurely day spent doing things that needed doing, but without the time pressure put on me by the typical rest-of-the-year duties. I don't know if I would like this slow pace indefinitely or could even maintain it justifiably. In the back of my mind there is this nagging little voice that insists I am just being lazy and that there is a lot of work I need to do, but for today I intend to ignore it and just enjoy myself as I feed and play with James, interact with my Littles, and dab a bit at the housework.
Days keep whirring by with what seems like increasing rapidity. It is amazing to me that it is already four weeks since James made his debut into our family. He is starting to show signs of personhood and interaction which is a delight to everyone, and his little chicken-stick legs are starting to plump up as he puts on weight from all the freshly made mama milk he drinks.
At the same time, life has slowed down for me in a number of ways. Despite my best intentions, I have not started the kids doing anything by way of school work, other than encouraging them to continue to read books and do a few math drills here and there. My eldest boys at home have been working at the local tree nursery on and off, and today my eldest daughter at home is with her older sister, Trista, doing "girl" stuff like painting her nails, buying clothes, and getting her hair done. My tomboy just turned 14 and is growing up into a young lady. (sigh) That leaves only six kids at home and to many this would seem like a lot. But my house feels empty with only six. What it will feel like in a few years when more leave I don't like to think on.
Yesterday was "town day" as I went in to pick up my weekly supply of fresh raw milk from a local farmer who has a cow I own shares in. I also did my grocery shopping and some other errands. It took me over 8 hours to accomplish all this because of the numerous pauses needed to feed James and change his diaper. You know -- summer and babies rock. The lack of clients, no school, and no schedule that needs following allowed for a leisurely day spent doing things that needed doing, but without the time pressure put on me by the typical rest-of-the-year duties. I don't know if I would like this slow pace indefinitely or could even maintain it justifiably. In the back of my mind there is this nagging little voice that insists I am just being lazy and that there is a lot of work I need to do, but for today I intend to ignore it and just enjoy myself as I feed and play with James, interact with my Littles, and dab a bit at the housework.
Friday, July 01, 2005
Energy Medicine Used to Combat Malaria
Some of the methods used for combatting malaria in the past and present have often used methods that are toxic to the environment, people, and other animals as well as becoming ineffective over time due to the ability of the malarial parasite to become resistant to these methods. Well now it looks like there is a non-toxic and effective way of combatting malarial infections in people: magnetic force fields.
"Henry Lai, UW research professor of bioengineering, says the malaria parasite Plasmodium appears to lose vigor and can die when exposed to oscillating magnetic fields, which Lai thinks may cause tiny iron-containing particles inside the parasite to move in ways that damage the organism."
"If further studies confirm our findings and their application in animals and people, this would be an inexpensive and simple way to treat a disease that affects 500 million people every year, almost all in third-world countries," Lai said. According to the World Health Organization, as many as 2.7 million people die of malaria every year. Approximately 1 million of those are children.
Now isn't that exciting? A non-toxic and relatively harmless way of treating a deadly disease that affects a large proportion of the world's population? The researchers envision a mobile truck or room lined with magnets where people can sit and read for several hours while being treated. The remedy is simple and inexpensive, and the malarial parasites are not likely to develop a resistance to it. This is the sort of thing that I think is the wave of the future -- there are all kinds of non-toxic and healthy alternatives to the more destructive and toxic way we have of doing things that have yet to be discovered.
As an optimistic historic postmillenialist, I think we will see more and more of these types of answers to what ails us and our planet being developed in the future.
Some of the methods used for combatting malaria in the past and present have often used methods that are toxic to the environment, people, and other animals as well as becoming ineffective over time due to the ability of the malarial parasite to become resistant to these methods. Well now it looks like there is a non-toxic and effective way of combatting malarial infections in people: magnetic force fields.
"Henry Lai, UW research professor of bioengineering, says the malaria parasite Plasmodium appears to lose vigor and can die when exposed to oscillating magnetic fields, which Lai thinks may cause tiny iron-containing particles inside the parasite to move in ways that damage the organism."
"If further studies confirm our findings and their application in animals and people, this would be an inexpensive and simple way to treat a disease that affects 500 million people every year, almost all in third-world countries," Lai said. According to the World Health Organization, as many as 2.7 million people die of malaria every year. Approximately 1 million of those are children.
Now isn't that exciting? A non-toxic and relatively harmless way of treating a deadly disease that affects a large proportion of the world's population? The researchers envision a mobile truck or room lined with magnets where people can sit and read for several hours while being treated. The remedy is simple and inexpensive, and the malarial parasites are not likely to develop a resistance to it. This is the sort of thing that I think is the wave of the future -- there are all kinds of non-toxic and healthy alternatives to the more destructive and toxic way we have of doing things that have yet to be discovered.
As an optimistic historic postmillenialist, I think we will see more and more of these types of answers to what ails us and our planet being developed in the future.
Oh, Canada!
Ruler supreme,Who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our Dominion in Thy loving care.
Help us to find, O God, in Thee
A lasting rich reward,
As waiting for the better day,
We ever stand on guard.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
~.~
Unfortunately, the guards on the watchtower have been off duty for quite some time. Now we have officially sanctioned perversion in the form of same sex marriages. Christians will soon be persecuted for so-called "hate crimes" when they protest that homosexual acts are an affront to God.
Psalm 118 reminds us not to put our trust in princes or other forms of civil magistrates. And many of the Psalms remind us that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those that dwell therein and one day His dominions WILL spread from shore to shore. I look forward to that blessed day and in the meantime keep my head down and try to plow on with being faithful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)