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Why Does The Government Keep Promoting Cigarette Smoking?

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on October 15, 2010 by admin in Health & Wellness

Friday, October 15th, 2010

Thanks to the restrictions imposed by recent legislation, Pall Malls have never looked more appealing.


How well do you think these would sell?

I must confess to having what you may consider a filthy, disgusting habit. No, not that one. I smoke. I’m not especially proud of it, and I may actually quit some day, but with no thanks to the US Government. If you don’t smoke, you may not have even noticed the results of the legislation recently enacted that restricts cigarette makers’ labeling of their packaging. So what were the results? Mostly the packages are just lighter shades or more colorful and appealing. In essence, the regulations just drove the tobacco companies to spiff up and contemporize their brands, while giving them incomprehensible amounts of free press. Aside from the fact that it has been recognized for some time that smokers engage in a high degree of cognitive dissonance it is now often argued that warnings can actually encourage people to keep smoking by stimulating their coping skills for dealing with the negative messaging. And it has also been suggested by marketers like Martin Lindstrom (in his book Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy ) that anti-smoking messages even go so far as to make a smoker want to smoke. The fundamental problem with the strategy of trying to convince smokers to change their behavior through packaging is that if you allow any package design at all, the manufacturer will win. As we said, the restrictions just drive brand innovation, and for an already addicted smoker, the creepy warnings used all over the world just become a sort of social object. My suggestion? Make all the packages white, with the requirement that all product names are randomly generated characters. No emotional connection to color, no evocative words or images that can operate as “hooks” of any kind. If you know any smokers and how addicted they are to their brand’s overall “feel”, I feel confident you’d see a measurable downturn in sales growth. Honestly, all this talk about cigarettes has made me want one. Care to join me? Maybe we could try one of those new Pall Malls. Read the rest of this entry »

Why I Don’t Care If The Health Care Bill Passes

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 3, 2010 by admin in Health & Wellness, Politics

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system. But the Health Care Bill certainly will present someone with a bill.

When I’m in a hospital room, I usually have a
hard time telling which way the blood is flowing.

I feel sorry for Barack Obama. Not only will history likely blame him for the long tail of the bank failures and bailouts for which the Bush administration was actually responsible, it will also likely blame him (because of the passage of the health care bill that has divided the country recently) for the continued malignancy that is our decrepit, bloated, and corrupt “health care system”. I put that phrase in quotes because I believe that – as the late Walter Cronkite once said – “America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system“. While a bunch of Democratic congressmen who have nothing to worry about regarding their health care plans sit around patting themselves on the back for passing a health care bill that has supposedly been the dream of generations of Democratic politicians, the fact is that things won’t change for many, and we’ll still be left saddled with the most expensive and least effective health care in the developed world. The bill does NOTHING to fix what any intelligent person sees as the fundamental problem; it might in fact worsen it. Whether you describe the problem as being a result of government meddling and insurance, or as patient overuse of treatment because insurance will pay for it, or as a result of doctors requiring malpractice insurance, you will notice the word “insurance” keeps popping up. The fact is that the mind-boggling arrangements for billing and payment that exist today would be IMPOSSIBLE without the insurance industry supporting its piece of what really is an incredibly elaborate and blatant ponzi scheme being pulled off by an industry and a profession that operates under the ultimate smokescreen: an illusion of benevolence Read the rest of this entry »

American Health Care – Isn’t The Problem Really Just Greed?

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on July 30, 2009 by admin in Politics

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

What would YOU do to fix America’s health care?

I’ve always thought that health care would improve significantly if doctors started out at a very high salary which went down with every patient they lost. Since that will never happen, it appears health care costs are going to remain a slight problem. I must confess that I’m about as ignorant as one can get when it comes to what’s going on with the health care plans the senate is working on right now (it’s more than one bill). I’m also astounded that there is so much disagreement about the root causes of our high health costs. I have a simplistic belief about why health care is such a shambles in the states, and almost zero faith that legislation will fix it. I believe that most discussions about the topic skip over the two fundamental causes: greed and denial. I think that our national psyche has lost touch with the fact that taking care of each other is a fundamental aspect of being a happy human, and that when we turn human life into a commodity that can have a price, you’ll end up with the morass that is American healthcare. And if you don’t think it’s a mess, look around at other capitalist democracies . Pretty much across the board, America fails, with the highest cost per-capita , lowest life expectancy (38th out of 100), and highest infant mortality rate. Do you think Washington is on track to fix these problems? What do YOU think is the problem or the solution?

If Beef Is So Bad For Us, Why Are Aliens Always Stealing Our Cows?

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on July 28, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Some say you can’t beat the meat for nutrition. I disagree. To quote Rutger Hauer’s character in Blade Runner: It’s not only irrational, it’s unsportsmanlike!

I haven’t been much of a meat eater for a long time, but I think I’m going to finally commit to a rule that will make me more or less vegetarian: I won’t eat it unless I kill it myself. When you take an objective look at eating meat, there’s virtually no rational reason to do it. Even if you don’t care about the brutality of “harvesting” it, it doesn’t offer nutrients that can’t be found elsewhere, it’s arguably unhealthy, it has multiple negative impacts on the environment including deforestation and habitat destruction, excessive water consumption, pollution and greenhouse gas production, and on top of all that, it contributes to starvation worldwide. Not a very good scorecard. I’m even finding it hard to justify eating fish; as I joked with a friend the other day: Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll be starving in 50 years. So why have I suddenly decided on the change in diet? It’s not really so sudden. I’ve avoided corn-centric food and gone light on meat proteins since the 80′s, because of Diet for a New America, but recently I watched three films in a one-week period that drove it all home: Read the rest of this entry »

Using Voodoo To Outlive Your Doctor

[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 19, 2009 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Can a positive mental attitude help you live longer? Can a terminal prognosis kill you?


My Proposal For A New American
Medical Association Logo

Years ago an acquaintance of mine, upon being diagnosed with cancer, made the joke that “no-one’s ever died of undiagnosed cancer”. Meaning, of course, that he was more concerned about the treatment killing him than the illness. He ignored his doctor’s prognosis of impending death, embraced all of the treatments he could learn about – both traditional and alternative – and took on a sort of punk rock attitude of “if all the other things I’ve done haven’t killed me, this won’t either”. Ten years later, he’s still alive and well. I personally hold the belief – in spite of any solid science to back it up – that mental attitude and spiritual discipline have as much impact on health and wellness as medicine. Which is why I found this New Scientist article about Voodoo fascinating. They actually touch on a topic that seems taboo amongst medical professionals – the powerful effect of placebo and nocebo. While there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence and popular belief that a good attitude can prolong life, it’s hard to find positive stories (from credible sources, that is) about the topic. This ABC story, for instance, focuses on the fact that support groups don’t seem to help cancer patients live longer, while overlooking the fact that these cancer patients are being treated in the same health care system that inspires movies like Sicko. I’d love to hear your story if you have one, especially one like this story about a man who was told by American doctors in the 70′s that he had just months to live. He’s alive and living happily on a Greek island today; all of his American doctors are dead.

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