I have an EX!#%&* Headache!

I was sitting on a pharmaceutical gold mine for years and never knew it. I had it on the tip of my tongue and I never came out with it. If only I could have bottled it, marketed, patented it, I would be rich beyond all my dreams. I had actually invented a pain killer when I was just thirteen years old called Vulgadrene and within 15 years I could have released the generic version Cursoset. But nooo, I didn't act on my genius, I just let every other sod run with it.

What's worse is that just last week, a UK group at Keel's University discovered my secret. You see they released a study called “Swearing as a Response to Pain.” After screening for potential victims, they took 64 university students and had them submerge their hands in ice water. They broke these students in half, actually they created two groups. In one group they were told to 'swear a blue streak', and the others they were advised to only say nice things like, “My that's a wonderful dress your wearing.” and “You know, that skin tone looks good on you.” These PHD geniuses discovered that those who used colourful metaphors experienced less pain, than those who only said nice things, and non-plus adjectives.

So the conclusion was that swearing kills pain, or at least helps control pain. One would think that a quick trip to a Clinical Tourette's Ward could save some grant money.

It would be interesting to be a fly-on-the-wall if the group did a field trip to see what the effects are outside the controlled environment. I actually believed and still do that in many instances swearing would actually be a source of pain or at least a catalyst to pain. Take for example, if a member of this academic fact finders group would walk into a biker bar and find that hulking fellow with the tattoo of 'Satan spanking Bambi' and say, "Your sissy looking @#$% Harley Davidson scooter is parked under my truck, move it Bubba!" Would it be safe to assume that in that case swearing could be a source of pain, or at least a catalyst?

But once again I missed the boat and soon you will watching TV and view commercials on the new 'Extra Strength Vulgadrene' with the child proof container. I can hear the jingles now as visions of lost fortune pass through me. Maybe I could call up the drug company and offer them my marketing skills.

Here are just a few jingles that may work. Vulgadrene, "Nothing reacts faster than Vulgadrene." Cursoset, "The concussion medicine." All you need is Cusserol, "Because the rounds longer than the pain." Vulgadrene, "The pain reliever hospices most use," and my favourite Extra Strength Insultadone, "Take it for Pain. Run for Your Life."

But with all medicines there are side effects that lead to other needs for different drugs. I believe that in all cases swearing should come with a warning label.

The Vulgadrene warning label could sound something like.... "Before taking this medicine, tell your doctor if you have a history of heart attack, stroke, or blood clot, heart disease, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, a history of stomach ulcers or bleeding, liver or kidney disease, polyps in your nose, a bleeding or blood clotting disorder. If you have any of these conditions, you may not be able to use the medicine, or you may need a dosage adjustment during treatment. This medication may be harmful to an unborn baby. Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant during treatment. Side effects include chest pain, weakness, shortness of breath, slurred speech, problems with vision or balance; black, bloody, or tarry stools; coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds; swelling; urinating less than usual or not at all; nausea, stomach pain, low fever, loss of appetite; headache with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash; bruising, severe tingling, numbness, pain, muscle weakness; stiffness, chills, increased sensitivity to light, purple spots on the skin, and/or seizure." (note: these are actual side effects of a common over-the-counter medicine.) If you experience any of these symptoms, for @#$% sakes stop swearing!

I guess the whole purpose of this editorial nonsense is the same as the study that prompted it. Why do we as a society even waste our time paying educated professionals to find out if saying the F-Word is a form of pain management? Do these people really believe that they have bettered society? Do they believe that after discovering this amazing pain management treatment that if you ever have a headache, stomach pain or pain in the backside, that you should blurt out @#$%!

Can you picture a city busload of stressed out urbanites relieving pain in the middle of a July heat wave.

One thing for sure, if you decide to jump in and test out these findings, please do it behind closed doors. In the meantime I have a frigg ‘in headache, where is the #$% Vulgadrene!

The Forgotten Dead

George Eliot once said “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”

This maxim was put to test recently when it was discovered that 300 bodies were dug up at an American cemetery. The graves where not vandalized by misguided youth, they were not desecrated by a racially misguided horde. No, what took place was a calculated business decision by cemetery staff. You see, they needed to make room for new tenants, it was simply business. They needed to resell the plots.

The Burr Oak Cemetery located in Chicago, IL, is known as the final resting place for many in the black community, including well-known jazz celebrities like Dinah Washington, Sonny Cohn and Willie Dixon. The bodies of those dug up were not re-interned to another location in a manner that preserves the sacredness of the grave. The bodies were dumped into a mass grave, and some bones were found among weeds in a remote section of the 150-acre grounds. The decision to desecrate these graves was one of simple business. Nobody was supposed to have noticed. After all, these graves had been abandoned by the living, left unattended and almost forgotten.

This act of evicting the dead from their place of rest brings to mind the operator of a ‘Self Storage’ facility. If the property stored on site is forgotten, and the families don’t maintain payments, the manager simply cuts the pad lock, pulls out the remaining property, sells off the valuables, and tosses the refuse in a landfill. Thus making room for a new tenant.

Many may think that an abandoned grave is fair game, since the dead are long gone, but desecration has no statute of limitation. The act of depriving something of it’s sacred character spiritually and morally is humanly repulsive. But before we sit back and point fingers at those American families that abandoned the dead, and those American cemetery workers that coldly violated the site, we need to look inward.

Cemeteries, here and around the world are few and far between, and our population is growing, and dying in a never ending cycle. The days-gone-by when your family attended one church generationally where the funerals, and burials were conducted by the church body have long gone. These church cemeteries, for the most part, are well kept, usually smaller and the burial records carefully maintained. But for many, internment takes place in community cemeteries or privately run burial grounds where the day to day business of running the grounds is a commercial venture. In those cases, the only people who would really ‘Care’ for the dead, are the attentive living families members. Ground keeping is only a cursory function, and no real special attention is given to those 8 feet under.

In the United Kingdom, Tim Morris of the Institute of Cemetery & Cremation Management wrote a paper on the ‘Reuse of Graves’ for the purpose of envisioning cemeteries as a sustainable community asset. The paper logically identified that the imminent shortage of land in Great Britain as well as the European Union had arrived. They identified that urbanization had encroached the existing sites, and there was a reduced standards of maintenance occurring at older cemeteries, many of which had ceased offering new burial sites. It was concluded that re-internment of older graves could be accomplished by removing, and then digging deeper, and thus stacking the dead. In this manner, desecration would not take place and historical continuity would be preserved.

In Canada, even though we do not have a shortage of public lands, there are cases where cemeteries have been abandoned by rural churches. Urban sprawl have encroached the once peaceful setting of the countryside cemetery. Many an example can be seen in both throughout Alberta, including close to home. These abandoned cemeteries are the plots of the forgotten dead. One such example spoken of, was the ploughing over of a cemetery close to Edmonton many years ago.

In the case of the Burr Oak Cemetery the cemetery manager and three gravediggers were each charged with one count of dismembering a human body, which can net them approximately $300,000 in fines. But the trial has yet to be set.

Alberta Einstein once said that “The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.” In the case of your loved-one who has passed on, the only prevention for such an accident is to be attentive of your family, living and dead. Those who have ventured before you deserve to be remembered and not left in the hands of greed and misguided secular policy makers. So the question really is, “Is there a sacred place you should be visiting?”

Will Alberta Harmonize?

In politics, there are positions that may look good but should not be chosen for a place to rest their laurels. Just like for Br-er Rabbit, a well's bucket may look like a great place to find solace, but sooner or later, the bucket's weathered rope gives way, giving you that sinking feeling. One only has to listen to our government leaders to predict which bucket they are seeking to stuff their backsides in.

On the heels of the news that Stemach's government has posted an $852-million deficit our Treasury Board President Lloyd Snellgrove has come out and used the phrase '5% sales tax'. He suggested that such a burden on Alberta citizens may be required to raise $8-billion annually. Considering that the province raised $35.8-billion in yearly revenue, that would represent a 22% increase in government income. That is one hell of a raise! That would represent a 10% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) at the till for every man, woman and child in this province.

Snellgrove was careful to point out that a push for a sales tax has come up during recent meetings with unions, health-care officials and business leaders. Do we really think that these groups jumped up with arms flaying saying, “Ooh, Ooh, I know, I know, lets have a sales tax!”

Snelgrove was quoted as saying “These things [PST] should be talked about and understood, but it's not in our plans this year.”

So what is your plan?

Whenever a governing body contemplates a controversial policy an educational component is included. This usually includes some form of media programming. It is important that the masses, thats you and I, are conditioned to accept a particular policy change or change in governmental direction. With this in mind, Snelgrove actually used the term 'provincial sales tax.' But that was not the first disclosure.

In April of this year the Calgary Herald broke with a story that started with the phrase, “The surplus king of provinces has turtled into 'have deficit' status.” It clearly pointed out that after delivering 13 balanced budgets, Alberta is now showing a deficit. The voice of that article was Jim Dinning, as he was interviewed by Don Martin.

What followed were several articles and radio talk shows of how Alberta went from 'have' to 'have-not' status. The crowning propaganda came from Ed Stelmach, when he lashed out at the Federal Government stating that 'Alberta can't carry the country!' While citing an inequity of the health funding transfers, a condition that has historically been on the shoulders of Albertans. Stelmach was looking to the feds for cash. Health Minister Ron Liepert is actually quoted as saying, “As an example, if we were to implement a five-cent gas tax, that's 400-million. I'm not suggesting thats what we're doing. We are not ruling out anything, other than the premier has said there will be no provincial sales tax.” And there the PST was mentioned, even though nobody else brought it up.

By now if you have been following the news, you have come to the conclusion that Alberta is no longer the financial rock it once was. The country is in a recession. In Alberta shovel ready programs have been publicly funded. Alberta Healthcare premiums have been dropped in January giving us the impression that we have free healthcare. Alberta posted an $852-million deficit, our first in 15 years. Our government spent $3.1-billion more this fiscal period than they did in 2007-08. Considering all this I guess we are about ready to accept the debt, and reach into our pockets to bail the government out. I bet a few folks out there are ready, yes?

Is our Albertan, rolling in oil pride so bruised that we would rather take food out of the mouths of our families instead of making our elected officials accountable for poor fiscal controls?

During the Ralph Klein years the government was able to reduce the deficit by reducing government expenditures by 20 percent.That translated into a 27.4 percent cut in services to Albertans. Although we enjoy less taxes in Alberta, we were offered less services, which include reduced free services from our healthcare professionals.

Further, the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund has been reduced from a peoples 'rainy day' savings account when in 1983 the conservative government ceased to earmark any energy revenues for the AHSTF. Since then all interest income has been allocated to the General Revenue Fund. This has had the effect of reducing the value of the AHSTF and it now realizes a less financial buffer than expected.

Economists will tell you that there are only two ways of tackling a government deficit. One is to raise revenue which usually translates to increased taxes. The other is to reduce government spending. Considering that Albertans have enjoyed less public services since the deKlein years, it looks as though increasing revenue may be the only option. So will Alberta Harmonize? I would not be surprised if in the near future you will be calculating a 10 percent HST with each purchase. That is if we let them.

Glass Houses

“It is better to be thought a fool than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt.” George Eliot.

Wise words which have been attributed to many, but few take counsel. The past few weeks have seen two politicians splay open their mouths much to the aghast of their supporters and adversaries.

First it was Lisa Raitt our federal resource minister who appeared insensitive to those suffering from cancer when she was caught equating the recent radioactive isotope shortage as being, ‘sexy’ political fodder. In her case she knew is was a fubar the moment it spewed forth. Raitt not only has lost her grandmother, grandfather and father to cancer she also lost her brother to the disease. That fact did not hinder the opposition from calling for an apology and a demand for her removal from office. Why would they hold back, it is the opposition’s policy to kick’em while they are down. Even though the PM publicly stood behind her, she offered an apology in very short order.

With the federal conservatives stumble passing, the good old Alberta Conservatives took a run at the Darwin Award. In walks our finance minister Iris Evans. In an address to the Economic Club of Canada she is quoted as saying, “They’ve understood perfectly well that when you’re raising children, you don’t both go to work and leave them for somebody else to raise. This is not a statement against daycare. It’s a statement about their belief in the importance of raising children properly” Later in her address she stated, “The huge failure of Canadians is not to educate the children properly, and then why should we be surprised when they have mental illnesses or commit dreadful crimes?”

Apparently, Evans has no problem pointing fingers at “They” who she equates to either single parent families or those who have both mother and father working out-of-the-home. In light of the fact that very few families can afford not to have two incomes supporting their needs, Evans appears to be out of touch with reality. This coming from a woman who four decades ago, juggled work as a registered nurse, teaching piano and raising three sons. Did she not have someone else watching her boys or did she just fill the bathtub half way and let them splash around while she was at work.

Since Evans holds the purse strings for the province and her apparent disrespect for working mothers, or should I say “They” don’t expect any additional tax relief or assistance for childcare in the very near future.

But let us take a closer look at what was on her mind. Three key points Evans put forth, first it was 1: working parents not raising their children properly, 2: lack of education causing mental illness, and 3: “They” plus mental illness causes dreadful crimes. Or better yet, “They” the negligent are the reason for increased mental illness and the crime rate.

Shame, shame on they! Where does she get this stuff? It appears that she wandered from her speech notes and only relied on her collective experience as our former minister of Children Services and minister of Heath and Wellness. When did she have the time to do extensive studies of the effect of working parents and lousy education on social ethical structures? Admittedly, all these can have a cause and affect on society but not always with detrimental results.

If her belief is that only education produces law-abiding citizens, then take the example of what a good education can bring us.

Ted Bundy was a graduate of the University of Washington; he went onto using his intelligence to lure over 30 women to their graves. Bonnie Parker was a straight “A” student and achieved honours in high school. Her and her lover went onto robbing banks and killing those who got in their way. Then there is Osama bin Laden, who is a graduate in Economics and Business Administration. These fine examples seem to contradict Evan’s belief that education affirms ethical behaviour.

I can find many examples that either agree or contradict her tenant, but the point being that her position is flawed, and a person of her station in life should be choosing her words more carefully.

Famous journalist Albert Edward Wiggam once said, “Intelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence.” Where do we find our finance minister in this quote?

It would be a refreshing thing if the likes of Iris Evans can remember where she came from and show a little humility when representing our conservative government.

The Cost of What?!

Over the past few years I have become more and more aware of my personal health. Suffice it to say that like many, arthritis has set in with a vengeance and people I care about around me have started to tackle serious health issues. Like many a baby boomer I have read a few books and articles discussing healthier living. The result, gravitating to organically grown foods. Pesticide free produce, free run chickens, and all natural ingredients have been pounded in my head as the only way to go. That was until I found a frozen turkey on sale for $102.50!

Just in case you missed it, I found a frozen turkey on sale for 102.50! In the same location I found a pound of butter for $8.99, 12 eggs for $5.79 and a litre of milk for $2.89! I was told that this store specialized in ‘organically raised’ produce and turkeys. I didn’t think of seeing how much a Foghorn Leghorn cost. Let me ask you, would that be a sales flyer you would respond to?

This high cost of chow brings a couple of questions to mind. First was just how expensive would this ‘healthier’ diet cost me, and second is it really any healthier than conventionally raised produce and penned up birds.

I have no problem in believing and actively advocating raising awareness of what you put in your mouth has an adverse or inversely a beneficial affect on your heath and lifestyle. Things like avoiding chemically processed foods, and understanding that when a food label lists the word ‘spice’ as an ingredient it is a legal way for process food manufacturers to hide MSG in their products.

The first question is a real no-brainer. If you paid the inflated cost of food based on the market price of food identified as organically grown, your average grocery bill would run you in the range of $2,200 per month. Of course this is a very rough estimate but based on the prices found in the store I mentioned the cost is rather conservative. The average Canadian is still only making $30,000 per year, which is a whopping 2500/month before taxes. Therefore it would be reasonable to assume that the ‘organic way’ is the affluent way.

Lets take a look at food value. According to a study conducted on organically and conventionally produced apples published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (08/16/2007) showed that there were no statistically significant differences. They discovered that consumption of neither organically nor conventionally grown apples caused any changes in antioxidant capacity of low-density lipoproteins. Further they showed that a significant increased capacity to protect DNA against damage induced by iron chloride were determined 24 hours after consumption in both organic and conventionally grown apples. That mouthful states simply an apple is an apple.

That tackles antioxidants; lets take a look at vitamins, proteins and minerals. In a study conducted by the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences (13/11/2000) it was concluded that nutritionally important differences relating to contents of minerals, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates are not likely, nor were present levels of pesticides residues in conventional products a cause for concern. But to be fair, this study did report that on average, organic vegetables and fruits more likely contain more of these compounds than conventional ones allowing for the possibility that organic plant foods may benefit human health more than corresponding conventional produce. That mouthful states simply nutrients are comparable in both groups, but organic may be better, they are just not sure.

Lastly let us take a gander at how residues and pest management affect you and I between organic and conventionally grown foods. In a study published by Taylor & Francis Ltd (Organic Materials Review Institute and the Consumers Union of the United States, 22/10/2001) they found that organically grown foods consistently had about one-third as many residues as conventionally grown foods and about one-half as many residues as found in their samples. They concluded that conventionally grown samples were far more likely to contain multiple pesticides residues than were organically grown samples. Simply put, if you spray pesticides and herbicides on your fruits and veggies, you will consume the poisons. In this instance, organically raised foods have less chemical residues. But note, that this study did not find that organically grown produce was chemical free, only had less chemicals.

Organics are the latest corporate success story. Big business has over the past ten years jumped in the fray, and in the USA one natural food retail chain grosses around one billion US dollars annually. In California, as an example, five gigantic farms control half of that states $400 million organic produce market.

Is this really considered wholesome organic farming? It has been societies experience that when something good becomes big business, quality control, the mission and the vision of the market makes way for profits. In light of these studies findings, I would suggest that any business that tries to produce ‘organically’ grown produce on a global commercial scale is no different than the less expensive and more efficient conventional method of commercial farming.

It can be argued that the grass roots farming methods definitely produce better tasting vegetables, chickens and even turkeys. Anyone that has eaten a roasted farm chicken raised on chicken feed and sour milk can testify on taste and appearance. But as far as the scientific studies are concerned the jury is out on many areas of human benefits. As far as I am concerned if I want to buy ‘organic’ food, I will stick to the smaller local operators and farmers markets. $102.50 for a frozen turkey, who do they think I am!