Object v. domain of study . . .

I just started reading Science Held Hostage: What's Wrong with Creation Science AND Evolutionism by Howard J Van Till, Davis A Young, and Clarence Menninga.

In the first few pages they make an interesting observation. Actually, they make the observation in their very first sentence, but it took a couple of pages before I understood its significance:

Although the entire physical universe may be the object of investigation by the natural sciences, not all of its attributes fall within the domain of scientific inquiry.

What does this mean?

The authors attempt to illustrate the distinction by suggesting how we might study a page in a book.

Suppose we were able to describe every aspect of the page from the perspective of a natural scientist. Suppose we analyzed its chemical and physical characteristics, the distribution of atoms, the specific locations of different compounds, the proportions and dimensions and spatial relations of all the physical components. . . .

At the end of such an analysis, would we have missed anything of significance?

Absolutely!

No amount of scientific investigation--at least no amount of scientific inquiry of the type described here--could possibly reveal, 1) that the object of our study [what we--as observers--know is a page of the book] actually is intended to convey meaning, or 2) what that meaning really is.

And, thus, "to say that this page is nothing but a particular assembly of atoms and molecules, or to assert that the physical universe is 'all that is or ever was or ever will be' (as Carl Sagan does in Cosmos, p. 1) is to speak nonsense."

Frustrated! Need to change my methodology . . .

I keep reading books and articles and tell myself I need to blog what I'm reading and studying and thinking. I feel the need partially because I find I really "master" something when I am able adequately to explain it. But I rarely get around to blogging . . . perhaps because I keep wanting to ensure I've done a thorough job of hitting every fine point.

So I've decided I need to change my mentality. "Just get the basic points out on the blog. Let your readers get a glimpse of what you're thinking about and, if they are interested, let them do their own research. Give a few clues, maybe a few links, but don't worry about being completely thorough."

So that's what I hope to do . . . and hope, thereby, to break up the ice and the backlog of posts I've been wanting to write but have never gotten around to.

Sorry.

And thanks.

Self-healing DNA . . .

My friend Perry Marshall just sent me a link to his latest article titled The Mathematics of DNA.

I have to confess, I can't follow all the math. (Or, perhaps more accurately: I have been unwilling to invest the time to figure out exactly what he is saying when he speaks about the implications of certain ratios.)

But ignore the more technical aspects and--as long as he isn't blowing smoke--the article is filled with some very intriguing ideas, indeed!

I'll quote the introduction just to whet your appetite:

Imagine that someone gives you a mystery novel with an entire page ripped out.

And let’s suppose someone else comes up with a computer program that reconstructs the missing page, by assembling sentences and paragraphs lifted from other places in the book.

Imagine that this computer program does such a beautiful job that most people can’t tell the page was ever missing.

DNA does that.

In the 1940’s, the eminent scientist Barbara McClintock damaged parts of the DNA in corn maize. To her amazement, the plants could reconstruct the damaged section. They did so by copying other parts of the DNA strand, then pasting them into the damaged area. . . .

How does a tiny cell possibly know how to do that???

A French HIV researcher and computer scientist has now found part of the answer.

Check out The Mathematics of DNA.

And if you can find anything wrong with what Perry has written, you may be sure he (and I!) would appreciate hearing about it.

Beware unfermented soy foods

I've been sitting on this story for too long. I keep wanting to write long, but don't have the time. So I figure I will settle simply for providing links with brief commentary that, I hope, will pique your interest.
I saw this article by Dr. Joseph Mercola about the dangers of unfermented soy. It has been linked to brain damage, breast cancer, and more.
And what are unfermented soy products? How about . . . soy milk, soybean oil, soy protein (an additive in many foods; look also [primarily?] for "textured vegetable protein" or TVP), soy "cheese," soy "ice cream" and soy "yogurt," tofu, edamame . . . --You know, all those supposedly "healthful" foods.
All those "healthful" foods that aren't--for various reasons, including these . . . that Mercola lists and documents in his article:

• 91 percent of soy grown in the US is genetically modified (GM). For many of us, that poses no worries. After all, the U.S. government wouldn't permit the widespread introduction of harmful GM organisms into our food supply would it? (More on that in future posts.) More important: The primary reason for the GM is to make the soy resistant to the herbicide Roundup--which we will get to in the next point.
   
• You may be sure that all the GM soy is "loaded with the toxic pesticide" Roundup.
   
• Soy contains natural toxins known as "anti-nutrients" which "interfere with the enzymes you need to digest protein."
   
• Soy contains hemagglutinin, "a clot-promoting substance that causes your red blood cells to clump together."
   
• Soy contains goitrogens, substances that "block the synthesis of thyroid hormones and interfere with iodine metabolism, thereby interfering with your thyroid function."
   
• Soy contains phytates which "bind to metal ions, preventing the absorption of certain minerals, including calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc -- all of which are co-factors for optimal biochemistry in your body."
   
• Soy is loaded with the isoflavones genistein and daidzein which "mimic and sometimes block the hormone estrogen, and have been found to have adverse effects on various human tissues. Soy phytoestrogens are known to disrupt endocrine function, may cause infertility, and may promote breast cancer in women."
   
• Soy has toxic levels of aluminum and manganese. --For example, "[s]oy formula has up to 80 times higher manganese than is found in human breast milk."
   
• Soy infant formula puts your baby’s health at risk. --Among the startling and disturbing statistics Mercola references:
   
• "[E]strogens in soy can irreversibly harm your baby’s sexual development and reproductive health. Infants fed soy formula take in an estimated five birth control pills’ worth of estrogen every day."
   
• Infants fed soy formula have up to 20,000 times the amount of estrogen in circulation as those fed other formulas!

Mercola provides links for all of these claims. You'll have to read the original article for details.

One key item. Please pay attention to the point about unfermented soy products. Fermented products (which, Mercola notes, are healthy--for reasons he explains) include . . .

• Tempeh
   
• Miso
   
• Natto
  
  and
   
• Soy sauce. ("Be wary," however, Mercola notes, "because many varieties on the market today are made artificially using a chemical process.")

Land of the free? Not when it comes to food!

I touched on this about a year ago. Hate to keep beating the drum. But as I keep discovering how my own health depends on bucking the "Fast Food Nation" approach to eating, I keep bumping into the obstacles--some major, some minor--that our federal government and, now, more and more, our state and local governments, are putting in our way to basic rights--like the right to buy an egg that has not been irradiated, or milk that has not been pasteurized (i.e., heated to a point where its enzymes and helpful bacteria have been destroyed).

Want to buy fresh (raw) milk? Illegal! --Doesn't matter what kind of agreement you are willing to sign: "I take full responsibility for my own health. If I become sick from this milk, I will pay all of my own medical costs. . . ." Doesn't matter. The government is going to "save" you by ensuring that, if you have any milk at all, it has been properly denatured through pasteurization, at least.

Good luck finding un-homogenized milk (suspected of contributing to some of the blood fat issues many of us suffer). That's difficult. But buying raw milk: Wholly illegal.

And now the U.S. federal government is becoming ever more tyrannical. Check out this story about how the feds, state, local and even Canadian "law enforcement" officers are engaging in illegal intimidation tactics against private citizens seeking only to eat foods that they believe are healthy for them.

"Weird" Science #1 - Properly mineralized agriculture better than modern medicine?

One of my new favorite magazines, Acres USA, included a striking opinion piece this month.
"Newspapers, magazines and electronic media outlets all over the world recently announced a breakthrough vaccine that will hopefully protect women against breast cancer," the author began.

He then referenced a report from CBS News (5/31/2010):

In the current study, genetically cancer-prone mice were vaccinated -- half with a vaccine containing the antigen and half with a vaccine that did not contain the antigen. None of the mice vaccinated with the antigen developed breast cancer, while all the other mice did.

Dr. Vincent Tuohy, Ph.D., the principal investigator on the project, said, "We believe this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines prevent polio and measles in children. If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental."

All well and good. Indeed, exciting.

But, asked the author of the Acres USA article, if this research is worthy of excitement, why have so few people heard of research conducted close to 60 years ago that produced similar results based solely on diet changes?

Specifically, why have so few of us ever heard of the pioneering work of Dr. Maynard Murray, M.D., who conducted multiple experiments from 1938 through the 1950s that showed that animals fed vegetables, fruits and grains that had been fertilized with sea minerals were able to overcome cancers that the same animals fed the very same foods grown in more conventional ways were not?

Murray first became interested in sea minerals when he realized that he had never found a sea creature suffering from cancer, even though cancers are very common in similar species that live in freshwater. "For example, fresh-water trout all develop terminal cancer of the liver at the average age of five and one-half years; cancer has never been found in sea trout. It is also known that all land animals develop arteriosclerosis, yet sea animals have never been diagnosed as arteriosclerotic." (Sea Energy Agriculture, p. 30)

So what kind of experiments did Murray do?

In 1954 he had Ray Heine and Sons Farms of Rutland Township, Illinois, grow oats, corn and soybeans--approximately half of each of these crops the normal way, and the other half exactly the same except for one difference. The experimental crops were grown in soil that received an application of 2,200 pounds of sea solids (sea salts--including whatever trace elements were present in the sea water before evaporation) per acre.

Murray was interested in how the crops grew. (The crops grown with the sea solids did better.) But then, after the crops were harvested, Murray wanted to see if these crops, now used as feed, would offer any differential benefits to the animals that ate them.

Researchers from the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University conducted the experiments.

They mixed up similar blends of the control grains and experimental grains--one part soybeans, two parts oats, and four parts corn--and fed them to different kinds of animals.

For example,

C₃H mice were obtained. . . . This strain of mice has been bred so all females develop breast cancer which causes their demise. The mice were two months of age when received and started on the feeding experiments. The life expectancy of this strain for females is no more than nine months which includes the production of two or three litters. The experimental and control groups both consisted of 200 C₃H mice and those fed on control food were all dead within eight months, seven days. The experimental mice that were fed food grown on the sea-solids-fertilized soil lived until they were sacrificed at 16 months; definitive examination revealed no cancerous tissue. The experimental group produced ten litters compared to the usual two to three litters and none developed breast cancer.

--Ibid., pp. 50-51

Then there were the Sprague Dawley rats: 25 controls and 25 experimentals were all injected with Jensen Carcino-Sarcoma (cancer).

All of the rats fed on the control diet died within 21 days of cancer. Nine of the rats that were fed the experimental diet died of cancer within 40 days; 16 lived five months until they were sacrificed; there were no cancer "takes" in the 16 . . . survivors that were fed experimental food.

--Ibid., p. 51

And the 24 rabbits, 12 experimentals and 12 controls. This time, both groups were fed a high cholesterol diet for six months and then fed their respective soybeans, oats and corn diets.

The control group did develop hardening of the arteries and all had died within ten months. The experimental group did not exhibit hardening of the arteries.

--Ibid., p. 52

Murray was very careful in the way he reported these results:

I want to emphasize that these feeding experiments and the results are only preliminary and it must be kept in mind that the mice, rabbits and rats used in these feeding experiments have a different physiology than human beings. The results are not definite but merely indicate an interesting trend and further research should be done to further document the findings. . . . In no way . . . do I suggest that the same results would occur in a human being due to the preliminary stage of research.

--Ibid., p. 50

Sounds like good science to me! So why don't we hear about it? Has it been disproven? Not that I've seen!

So what has become of Murray's work? What has the medical establishment done with it?

As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing.

Why?

Maybe it has to do with money . . . and the cozy relationship between the major pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. After all, the FDA can't permit people to think of foods as possessing healing qualities!

As reported by Mike Adams in Natural News back in May of this year:

[The FDA] has structured the rules to categorize anything that treats or prevents disease as a drug. So if you eat walnuts, and those walnuts lower high cholesterol (which they do), the FDA declares your walnuts to be "drugs."

Existing law dictates that if anything is advertised as providing health benefits without the FDA's approval, it's automatically considered to be an "unapproved drug", even if it's a common, everyday food like walnuts, cherries, grapes or oranges.

Amazingly, references to peer-reviewed scientific studies are not allowed to be made by companies without permission from the FDA because the agency considers this to be an illegal health claim. So if you sell walnuts, and your website merely links to published scientific studies that describe the cholesterol-lowering benefits of walnuts, then you can be threatened, arrested, imprisoned and fined millions of dollars by the FDA for selling "unapproved drugs."

If you flee the country, you can be then be listed on INTERPOL as an international fugitive wanted for "drug offenses." This is exactly what happened to Greg Caton, who was recently kidnapped from Ecuador by U.S. agents working on behalf of the FDA, brought back to the USA against his will, and sentenced to federal prison where he remains to this day. . . .

If you're skeptical that what I'm saying here is true, take a look at the warning letter the FDA sent to Diamond Food, Inc. back in February concerning the health claims the company had been making about its walnuts.

There's plenty more where that came from!

And it's enough to make me angry.

How is our federal government serving us, helping us, by engaging in this kind of behavior?

And then there was this gem from Dr. Jonathan Wright's Nutrition and Healing newsletter (received 5/8/2009):

For decades, the FDA has been a danger to you and your family's health. Nearly 20 years ago, the government's own General Accounting Office (GAO) wrote: "GAO found that of the 198 drugs approved by FDA between 1976 and 1985...102 (or 51.5%) had serious post-approval risks...the serious postapproval risks...[included] heart failure, myocardial infarction, anaphylaxis, respiratory depression and arrest, seizures, kidney and liver failure, severe blood disorders, birth defects and fetal toxicity, and blindness."

That terrible record continues into the 21st century (Vioxx is just one example that springs immediately to mind).

And to add insult to injury, while it has been busy approving all those potentially lethal patent medicines, the FDA has also been actively fighting against your right to keep yourself healthy with foods and food supplements! Picking on cherries is just one recent example. All the way back in 1949, former FDA commissioner Dr. George Larrick said: "The activities of...so-called health food lecturers have increasingly engaged our attention....[we are fighting] the good fight against dried vegetables, vitamins, and similar products."

Sure is comforting, isn't it?

My Passport to India getting better and better!

If you haven't checked it out, I would like to encourage you to go to http://www.mypassporttoindia.org/ and at least watch the Day 4 video and check out the corollary materials.

I'm very impressed with what Mission India is doing with this series.

A little stay-at-home-mom one-upsmanship: "Why I can't make friends"

Someone on the Sonlight forums posted a link to Why I can't make friends (3:15). The deadpan computer-generated voices and unexpressive faces of the two mothers in this video make the interaction all the more hilarious.

If you have ever felt yourself being put down by someone else as a result of their casual comments about how superior their children are, I think you may enjoy it!

Of course, you won't want to miss PT ST OT OMG (Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, OMG; 1:55) as well.

If you've interacted with anyone really into natural childbirth, you'll probably get a kick out of the over-the-top The pool had baby bunnies on it (1:36).

Children's nutrition, cleanliness, and health: The average human swallows 40 spiders in their sleep (1:39).

Toy dangers: It could happen (1:13). Absolutely hilarious.

Helicopter parents? There's an app for that! (1:06).

I wasn't as taken with the other videos. I'm sorry to think the creator may be running out of steam.

Income inequality, taxes, and tax breaks

I keep hearing about how the gap between rich and poor keeps growing in the United States . . . and how the size of so many top executives' salaries in the United States have ballooned in recent years . . . even while average workers' wages have failed to keep up with inflation.

Typical information along these lines includes statements like these:

• From the New York Times, March 2007:
  

  The [latest] data . . . shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

• Or this, from an excellent article by Professor G. William Domhoff of the University of California at Santa Cruz:
  

  The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options. It was at 411:1 in 2005 and 344:1 in 2007, according to research by United for a Fair Economy. By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in Europe.

  And,
  

  The rising concentration of income can be seen in a special New York Times analysis of an Internal Revenue Service report on income in 2004. Although overall income had grown by 27% since 1979, 33% of the gains went to the top 1%. Meanwhile, the bottom 60% were making less: about 95 cents for each dollar they made in 1979. The next 20% - those between the 60th and 80th rungs of the income ladder -- made $1.02 for each dollar they earned in 1979. Furthermore, the Times author concludes that only the top 5% made significant gains ($1.53 for each 1979 dollar). Most amazing of all, the top 0.1% -- that's one-tenth of one percent -- had more combined pre-tax income than the poorest 120 million people.

Clearly, we are looking at some rather astonishing inequality, here! And it would be wonderful if the people receiving the highest incomes would be willing to share some of their wealth with--i.e., give . . . or, shall we say, be charitable toward--those less fortunate than they.

Of course, our government is not particularly inclined to think in terms of charity. It prefers to speak in terms of rights and fairness and equality. And so we hear talk of the need to raise taxes on the wealthy. And we hear discussions about what to do with the Bush-era tax cuts.

What we don't hear is any kind of acknowledgment like this (from an editorial by Joel Belz in the latest World magazine):

In all the discussion about tax breaks for the rich, two fairly simple facts are really all you need to know.

Fact No. 1 is that only 3 percent of all the taxpayers in the United States pay more in income taxes than the other 97 percent combined. [That shouldn't be so surprising, when one considers the income disparities. --JAH] Fact No. 2 is that even if you taxed that 3 percent of our population at a rate of 100 percent of their income [not quite three times the current top rate--JAH], you wouldn't produce enough additional revenue to cover the deficits our federal government is now incurring each year.

Notice: We're talking about current deficits, here! We're not talking the federal budget. We're talking solely about the federal budget deficit. The federal government can't squeeze a whole lot more out of American citizens. And even if it could, it couldn't pay its debts.

Let's see. What is that called?

Oh, yes!

Bankruptcy.

And when national governments go bankrupt, what usually occurs?

Oh, yes!

Social upheaval . . . on a grand scale.

And what are our politicians talking about? Means for restructuring our nation's financial circumstances along the lines of Chapter 11 bankruptcies?

No.

Apparently, they would rather dig us further into a hole, so we can enjoy the kind of social upheaval Europe is enduring right now as people protest austerity measures . . . or, possibly, worse (all-out warfare with those to whom we owe money and are unable to pay)?

Reading what shouldn't be there . . . but is

I have three or four web pages set up as my standard home pages on my web browser. But I so rarely start a new session that I almost never visit my home pages!

Today, however, I wanted to have two browser sessions going at the same time--so I could copy material more readily from one screen to another. (Just a little easier than using multiple tabs in one browser session.)

Anyway. That meant I saw my home pages--which include iGoogle--for the first time in weeks. My eye was attracted--as it usually is--to one of the widgets I have running on iGoogle: Mighty Optical Illusions.

And today's optical puzzle was a doozy:

What do all those strange shapes stand for?

I know--or at least I assume--the artist has to be playing with negative space. Normally I can "see" whatever-it-is they have hidden in the negative space. But this one just seems really difficult!

Eventually, with the help of some commenters, I was able to make it out. But unlike the editor of the blog, who says, "once you see it, there’s no going back," I will confess that I "go back" regularly. I have to almost trick myself into seeing what the artist has hidden.

See how you do.

If you can't make it out, let me suggest that you pretend you are looking at a flat piece of bright metal. Someone has cut holes in it with an acetylene torch. The metal is brightly lit from the front (behind you, over your right shoulder), and the background is dark.

Yes, it does say something.

If you don't get it, "check this revealing article," writes the blogger. And there you will find an easier puzzle of a similar variety -- although I believe we should say it uses positive rather than negative space:

Well?

Some land, a new job . . . and a whole new (weird (??)) science . . .

Let me begin with the land, the property.

I don't know when this first came up. Quite a number of months ago.

Sarita said she was disgruntled with how we are invested for retirement. "You have money in conventional investments," she said. "That's okay. But I want some money invested in land."

More particularly, she wanted some land for some kind of end-of-the-world scenario family retreat. Kind of.

To be honest, even today, months later, I'm not really sure what her real goal was or is other than to "own some property." And she wanted me to make it happen.

I tried to write up her goals as best I could. (After all, how can one choose property if one doesn't know what the property is going to be used for?)

I don't know that my document was really all that helpful. But next thing I knew, Sarita was talking about the (empty, undeveloped) property next door to Amy and Phil over in Virginia.

"But we don't want to live in Virginia!" I protested. "We love Colorado!" (If you're a Virginian, please forgive my personal predilection for Colorado.) "We have no intention of moving to Virginia! We don't want to own a home there. . . ."

"But I want some property. And I would rather it were somewhere close to Amy and Phil than anywhere else. . . ." (Notice for anyone who may feel we are slighting our other kids: Justin hasn't really decided where he might settle. And our other two married children live right close by where we are. So, I imagine, if Sarita feels the need to "retreat" somewhere in an apocalypse, that would mean she would feel the need to move away from where we are--which means it would be away from where our kids other than Phil and Amy are. . . . So the property next door to Amy and Phil is attractive.)

"I want us to purchase that property," said Sarita.

"And then what? Just let it sit there?"

No answer.

"If we are going to own land, I don't want it simply to sit there, doing nothing. It has to be productive."

More silence.

I really wasn't interested in the property. It was Sarita's idea. . . . But guess who was sent to Virginia to check out the property and to negotiate a purchase?

Yep! Me.

As of sometime late in August, Sarita and I were able to come to an agreement with the (now, previous) owner, and as of early last month, we became the new owners of 57 acres of relatively undeveloped timber and farmland in Esmont, VA.

. . . And at the same moment, I think I got a new job as, more or less, manager of this new property.

And you know what? I'm pretty excited. I've got a whole new world to explore and study.

*********

Okay.

So on to the "whole new (weird(??)--certainly unexpected/out-of-the-ordinary!) science."

I think I've been moving in this direction slowly for quite some time. Maybe I began, ever so slightly, back several years ago when we discovered that Amy and Luke had some kind of strong reactions to wheat. Not allergic reactions in the anaphylactic sense of the term. But sensitivities nonetheless. Debilitating reactions that were not immediately nor obviously related to the ingestion of wheat until we (or, I should say, really, they--both Amy and Luke) took deliberate and careful steps wholly to eliminate wheat from their diets and then gently test to see whether reintroducing wheat caused certain symptoms.

It took several months, but eventually we--Sarita and I, our family--could not deny what we (or, rather, they) were experiencing.

And then there were the issues I've been dealing with. What I discovered about all the things conventional doctors don't talk about: my interactions with my rheumatologist (see this series of posts); discoveries about the interaction of wheat with my body that seems to exacerbate my rheumatoid symptoms; and so on and so forth.

But it's gone beyond that. The alternative medicine discoveries I've been making--about cholesterol (just for a minor example: average size and number of particles per volume of blood matters more than total volume of cholesterol; see also Marc's comment at the bottom of this post) . . . or about the interplay of autoimmune disorders and Grave's Disease and rheumatoid arthritis . . . or the things I mentioned a few days ago about thyroxine. --All this stuff, and my traditional/regular doctors seem totally oblivious.

But the drumbeat continues. There were discoveries not just about organic milk, but about (what aficionados want to call real milk, but what we will agree to call) raw milk from cattle fed solely on organic grasses and other forage rather than on grain.

And then, semi-finally, Amy and Phil took off for Virginia to start homesteading. And they have gotten deeper and deeper into some--what appears . . . or, rather, appeared--to be very "weird" views about food and food-growing.

"You don't want to eat non-organic foods."

"Stay away from GMO."

And my longevity and vitality doctor kept talking about the importance of eating organic. ("But it's so expensive!" I replied.)

And then, suddenly, maybe four months ago, Sarita, trained (though no longer licensed) dietitian that she is, and über skeptic, when it comes to foods, of everything that hasn't been thoroughly proven through double-blind scientific tests . . . --Sarita suddenly came out and said, "We are going to eat organic."

So we are eating organic.

(I ought to comment, here: We are eating organic, but--from my perspective--without as much pleasure as I would hope, especially considering the expense. So much of the fruits and vegetables we buy are so lacking in flavor! --But that is a subject I intend to return to in days to come. I am learning about these things and will be glad to share. . . .)

Meanwhile, now, I have begun to study how to turn our new farmland into something productive. . . . And I have been introduced to enough "weird" things that I have begun to follow the lead of Amy and Phil at least to check out what they are doing and advocating.

And so I am studying what practitioners call "biological farming" or, as one speaker I've listened to described it, organic farming "beyond zero-input"--what we might call stimulated or positive organic farming.

Sidebar:

Sadly, so much organic agriculture seems to be defined by what farmers avoid or don't do. They don't add certain chemicals or 'cides (pesticides, herbicides, etc.) that aren't naturally present in the soil. But biological farmers--among whom I hope to take a place--seek to use scientific understanding wisely to manage the natural resources that are normally present in healthy soil--the natural elements (yes: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium--the stuff on which modern commercial agriculture is founded, but calcium, sulfur, boron, sodium, manganese, and all the other elements, too) and, almost more importantly, the microbes, the fungi, the protozoa, the worms, and so forth that are also present when soil is healthy.

Biological farmers avoid all the bad stuff, but they seek to add resources that may be missing. They don't sterilize the soil--as so many of the modern chemical agricultural products do. Rather, they bring the missing ingredients into the mix to encourage healthy growth and, thereby, push out the unhealthy.

********

I intend to say much more on this topic in the future, but I would like to pass on just this one story at least to whet your appetite.

It's from a lecture in which the speaker, Bruce Tainio, described some of the work he has done.

Early in his career, he said, he was a plant breeder. One of his jobs was to produce a mildew-resistant spinach. He did that and was successful. "But then, about a year and a half or two years later, I found that my mildew-resistant spinach had a new variety of mildew growing on it!" So he developed a new variety that was resistant to two types of mildew.

"After going through 13 varieties of mildew, I decided I was helping Mother Nature produce these strains of mildew . . . and I became frustrated as a plant breeder."

He said he began looking at the reasons plants get diseases and to see if he could develop some kind of testing mechanisms by which farmers could predict whether their crops were going to be attacked by pests or diseases.

Eventually, he came to the conclusion that he could do that by testing the pH in the petioles of plants.

After years of study, he said, he came to the conclusion that there is an optimal pH level for all living plants. The sap in the petiole should measure 6.4 on the pH scale. If they measure 6.4, you can sleep well because they will not suffer disease or attack from insects. If they are at 5, you have an 80% probability that the plants will suffer damage from disease or insect attack. If they are at 4, they are, without doubt, diseased.

That is what he said.

I had a group of grape growers from California who had studied my work on pH. They wanted to call me and tell me that I was incorrect. Maybe my theory applied to every other crop, but it didn't apply to grapes.

I said, "Why do you say that?"

"Well we are good grape growers. We have been grape growers for 40 years. There are five of us in our group. We have taken the pH of our plants, and the highest pH we could find in the tissue is 3.1. The average is 3."

I asked [my caller], "How many acres of grape plants have you replaced in the last five years because of phylloxera?"

The phone went silent for a minute. Then he said, "Well, yeah. We have replaced about 50% of our grapes right now and we are scheduled to replace them all eventually because the phylloxera really takes its toll on our grapes."

I said, "Well, that could be an indicator that you are wrong on your pH."

"Well, we have grown grapes for 40 years, and we know how to grow grapes."

End of story.

Grape growers right, or Tainio right?

Beyond that, why would pH have anything to do with disease or pest resistance?

Tainio noted that low calcium in a plant cell means there will be high hydrogen, hence low pH, and hence, susceptibility to disease and insect attack.

Low cell pH yields a high resonance frequency. . . . Hydrogen has a higher resonance frequency than does calcium, potassium, or sodium. . . . Diseases and/or insects come from low calcium in the plant cell, simply because it is helping to modify the frequency, the infrared frequencies, for insects to see. . . .

Calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, and hydrogen: the balance in these five nutrients yields a pH of 6.4. Healthy, disease- and insect-free crops are the result of balancing these five and getting 6.4. I have never seen a disease or insect attack a 6.4 pH crop, period. If you have insects on a crop and bring it up to 6.4 through foliar nutrition, the insects will walk away. They won't even recognize that it's a crop. If you have diseases, the diseases will stop, period, if you bring it up to 6.4.

Why will the insects walk away? . . . One of the ways insects recognize crops . . . is through infrared. Infrared in the 720 nm range, we can't see. In the 660 nm range, we can see. . . .

[Similarly with insects.] When we balance the nutrition, we are holding the signature of that crop to a realm that the insects don't even know that it's there. They will fly right by. They won't even recognize it.

(There are other ways that they recognize crops, but this is one of the easiest to explain.)

Okay. More than enough for one post . . . and you get to know a little bit about some of the things I'm working on!

Heavy metal contamination . . .

While talking with my naturopath on Tuesday, as I already mentioned, we got onto the subject of heavy metals.

I told him that, considering how much heavy metal Jonelle has in her body, I figured I was probably loaded with the stuff, too. I don't know where or how I would have been contaminated, but I can't ignore the possibility.

He replied, "It's highly unlikely you would've gotten heavy metals from the same place Jonelle did. Most people who are loaded with heavy metals got them from their mothers."

"Their mothers!?!"

"Yes."

"And where would the mothers have gotten their heavy metals?"

"The most common source: tooth fillings. The mercury in tooth fillings."

He suggested I look up a video on YouTube: Smoking Teeth.

I've done that. And I looked up a bunch more. Pretty enlightening . . . and scary at the same time!

Here's Smoking Teeth:



Don't believe the graphical presentation? Check out Visualization of Mercury vapors in UV light:



. . . and It Really Is MERCURY!:



And then--for a really eye-opening perspective on how amalgam fillings ought to be removed, check out Safer Amalgam Removal:



How does your dentist remove fillings?

Finally, in case you wonder: How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Damage from the University of Calgary:



. . . And after all that, perhaps you noticed--as I did--the warning that appears to be from an authoritative source . . . that one should never have amalgam fillings placed in the middle of gold crowns.

So what did the endodontist do the week after I had a gold crown put in this summer, and my tooth was killing me with pain? . . . Yep! Amalgam filling.

I think I have some more research to do.

--International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology -- http://iaomt.blogspot.com

Thyroid difficulties . . . and the U.S. government

I first wrote the majority of this post last October, but abandoned it when I felt it wasn't quite ready for publication.

Following my post about my encounter with the naturopath, however, I thought I should provide this as a kind of "background"--and, perhaps, as a wake-up call to those who are unaware of the issues I describe, and, finally, perhaps, as useful information for someone who is struggling with thyroid issues.
*******
---The following text was written in October 2009---
I had my thyroid destroyed back in 1984 as a result of a hyper-hyper case of Grave's Disease. --The lab that did the tests said they had never seen thyroxine levels as high as mine; they were "off the charts."

So my doctor gave me the radioactive isotope Iodine-131 to destroy my thyroid gland . . . and a few months later I had none.

I have been taking thyroxin/thyroxine tablets ever since. For some time, now, I've been taking the "natural" stuff sold under the Armour^® brand name by a company named Forest Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals (what, in just the last few days, I found out are desiccated and pulverized pig thyroid glands formed into pills). Most of the time, however, I've been taking synthesized thyroxine sold as generic levothryroxine or a branded product like Synthroid^®.

What's the difference between the two? I mean, physiologically . . . for the person like me who is ingesting the stuff?

I will confess that, for me, I haven't really been able to tell the difference. But then, I haven't been all that attentive to my physical condition until the last couple of years.

For many people, however, the difference between the two concoctions is dramatic, though the majority of doctors seem to believe the difference is all in hypothyroid sufferers' heads.

Happily, only one of my doctors has actively opposed my use of the Armour^® tablets. But despite his opposition, I've been able to use the Armour^® product for the past seven years or so.

This last year, however, I started bumping into supply difficulties. Back in January I was told the pharmacy didn't have 120 mg tablets (the daily dose I needed at the time). . . . Happily, they "simply" gave me the equivalent in the form of two 60 mg tablets per day. No big deal.

Last time I refilled, in late May, I still had almost a month's worth of pills left when I got a three-month supply of 60 mg tablets from our insurer's mail order pharmacy. . . . Then, only a few days after I got my three-month supply, I was told I should reduce my dose to only 90 mg--1½ tablets--a day. So in mid-October, I was just coming to the end of my supply.

Meanwhile, in mid-October I had another blood test to see how my thyroxine levels are.

My doctor wanted to run with the "standard" TSH-only (thyroid stimulating hormone-only) test. I said I believed we really needed the T4 and T3 levels measured as well. (Since then I have found some interesting data on the need for all three tests.)

TSH measures what your body "thinks" it needs in the way of thyroxine. T4 and T3 measure actual thyroxine levels in the blood--and, based on tests I've been having done throughout this past year on the direction of my longevity and vitality doctor, I know that one or more of these numbers can be "out" of range while TSH is "in" range.

My doctor relented.

The tests came back: TSH and T4 levels both indicated a significant deficiency, but T3 was slightly out-of-range on the high end.

"How about bumping your dose back up?" my doctor asked.

"Sounds reasonable," I said. (I had gotten the sense, somehow, that my body was slowing down a bit.)

But what should we make of the T3? Why is that so high?

Is it that kind of anomalous/strange number that got Armour's thyroxine in trouble, here, in the last year [so that it is unavailable for purchase]?

I still have a few weeks' worth of Armour left if I take it at 120 mg/day.

Meanwhile, I asked, "Is there any 'natural' thyroxine that can/will replace Armour while they are out of production?"

I thanked him for any help he could provide.

He replied:

1. I've been in touch with my pharmacologist. She states that since Armour is an animal product, the amount of T3 and T4 will vary from batch to batch which might explain the high T3 and low T4. Synthetic products like synthroid are more consistently dosed.

2. I don't think Kaiser has any of the other brands of the natural thyroid of any kind so we might have to get you to get it elsewhere during the shortage.

Somehow, I had this feeling the pharmacologist was misinformed. I can't imagine Armour/Forest Pharmaceuticals has been able to get away with inconsistent product quality for all these years.

So I did a little research. And then some more. And then a lot more.

I'm astonished at what I have found.

• First--not terribly astonishing, but worth noting: The pharmacist really was "blowing smoke." Armour Natural Thyroid is carefully controlled for potency and purity:
  

  The amount of thyroid hormone present in the thyroid gland may vary from animal to animal. To ensure that Armour Thyroid tablets are consistently potent from tablet to tablet and lot to lot, analytical tests are performed on the thyroid powder (raw material) and on the actual tablets (finished product) to measure actual T4 and T3 activity.
  
  Different lots of thyroid powder are mixed together and analyzed to achieve the desired ratio of T4 to T3 in each lot of tablets. This method ensures that each strength of Armour Thyroid will be consistent with the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) official standards and specifications for desiccated thyroid lot-to-lot consistency. The ratio of T4 to T3 equals 4.22:1 (4.22 parts of T4 to one part of T3).

• Despite these statements by the manufacturer, you can still read claims such as this:
  

  Armour Thyroid was the only treatment for hypothyroidism for about 50 years, but it was found that the amounts of T3 and T4 varied greatly from batch to batch. Eventually, synthetic T4 (Synthroid) was being produced and widely used because it did not have similar problems of standardization in common with the naturally derived Armour Thyroid.

  And even stranger and more inaccurate information from the American Thyroid Association.
  
  But, as Mary Shomom notes in the About.com Guide to Thyroid Disease, there may be good reasons for this kind of disinformation "from the top." Just follow the money--from Abbott Laboratories, maker of Synthroid, to the American Thyroid Association, for example. [Look toward the bottom of this article for the evidence.] --Or how about the payments from all the synthetic hormone manufacturers to the FDA in order to get their products approved in the early 2000s after virtually all of them were found to show "significant stability and potency problems"?
   
• Armour REFORMULATED its thyroid product in the spring of 2009--changing its binders and excipients . . . and causing a bunch of problems for many patients.
   
• Whether Armour thyroid is efficacious or not, it turns out there really is no source of natural thyroid in the United States as of this moment. And, it appears, the FDA may have actually outlawed--or may be in the process of outlawing--the manufacture of this product in the United States, a product that has been on the market and helping people like me for more than 100 years.
  
  The more I have read, the more disturbed I have become at this turn of events.
   
• Despite the shortage here in the United States,
  

  Canada has a generic natural desiccated thyroid drug, referred to as 'Thyroid,' which is made by ERFA Drugs . . . [and s]ome of the foreign pharmacies that ship to the US may have some remaining stock of Nature-Throid, Westhroid, Armour Thyroid, or foreign brands of natural desiccated thyroid like Thyroid-S.

  It took a while, but eventually I discovered the natural thyroid preparation made by Greater Pharma of Thailand: a product that goes by the brand name Thiroyd and available in wholesale quantities at a wonderful price. I also found a Canadian source with very good prices of the ERFA Thyroid and in a wide variety of specific dosages.
  
  I had my doctor write me a highly "generic" prescription for natural thyroid along the lines of the following advice from the http://is.gd/4hhvT article:
  

  During the shortages, ask your doctor to write your prescription for desiccated thyroid as broadly as possible. For example, a prescription for 'desiccated thyroid, 1 grain' can be filled with Armour, Nature-Throid, Biotech, or a generic. But if they write 'Armour Thyroid, 60 mg' for example, you won't be able to get 'Nature-Throid.'

• I should have learned these things years ago, but I just now discovered: the synthetic thyroxines normally prescribed by the medical profession supply only one form of thyroxine, "T4"--tetra­iodothyronine--commonly formulated as levothy­ro­xine sodium (a synthetic thyroxine molecule that contains four molecules of iodine bonded by sodium). Our bodies, however, use T4, T3 (triio­dothy­ro­nine--i.e., thyroxine with three iodine molecules), T2 (diiodothyronine--thyroxine with two iodines), T1 (monoiodothyronine), and something called cal­ci­to­nin, a hormone that participates in and/or regulates calcium loss from bone, calcium levels in the blood, and, possibly (proven in rats and monkeys; not yet demonstrated in humans), satiety.
  
  Not only do our bodies use all five of these hormones, when they are healthy, our bodies manufacture them. If--as happened to me via Iodine-133 therapy--your thyroid has been knocked completely out of commission, the only way you're going to get the T2, T1 and calcitonin is if you take natural thyroid. Yes, your body can convert some T4 to T3, but, I am given to understand, it cannot further break down the T3 to T2, T1, or calcitonin.
   
• An article published in the February 11, 1999 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (1999;340:424-429, 469-470) reports that treatment with thyroxine [T4--the commonly prescribed synthetic levothyroxine/Synthroid hormone] plus triiodothyronine [T3--rarely prescribed by American doctors, but available under the brand name Cytomel] improved the quality of life for most hypothyroid patients. Indeed, "Among 17 scores on tests of cognitive performance and assessments of mood, 6 were better or closer to normal after treatment with thyroxine plus triiodothyronine. Similarly, among 15 . . . scales used to indicate mood and physical status, the results for 10 were significantly better after treatment with thyroxine plus triiodothyronine [i.e., T4 plus T3]."
  
  Of course, that is a dispassionate medical/scientific statement.
  
  A more partisan description comes from the StopTheThyroidMadness website:
  

  [I]n nearly ALL patients on T4 meds, the T4 does NOT convert into an adequate amount of T3, leaving you with symptoms that neither you OR your uninformed doctor realize are related to inadequate treatment—poor stamina compared to others, chronic low grade depression, thinning hair or outer eyebrows, feeling cold when others are warm, cholesterol problems, aches and pains, hard or small stools, easy weight gain, memory problems, foggy thinking, a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia, difficulty conceiving . . . the list is long and pathetic. In other words, healthy thyroids are NOT meant to rely solely on T4-to-T3 conversion!

• Despite the fact that the medical profession recently tightened the definition of "normal TSH" to no more than 3.04 mU/l (they used to say "normal" went as high as 5 mU/l), a 1997 article in the British Medical Journal concluded, "Thyroid stimulating hormone concentrations above 2 mU/l are associated with an increased risk of hypothyroidism." --And again the author at StopTheThyroidMadness.com ups the ante:
  

  Around 1973, the TSH lab test was developed. Based on a sampling of several volunteers, a so-called “normal” range was established—.5 to 5.0 (recently lowered to 3.0). But volunteers with a history of family hypothyroid were NOT excluded, leaving us with a range that leans towards being hypothyroid! In fact, the TSH RARELY corresponds to how a patient feels [i.e. to actual hypothyroid symptoms]. There is a large majority of patients who have a “normal” TSH, even in the “one” area of the range, and have a myriad of hypo symptoms. There is a complete chapter on the TSH with more information in the Stop the Thyroid Madness book.

• Nature-Throid and Westhroid have served many people well. But the Armour shortage--together with a shortage of USP desiccated thyroid powder--has now created a shortage of these alternatives.

---End of October 2009 Text---
Yesterday, as I spoke with my naturopath, I was surprised to hear him tell me that the desiccated thyroid products are now readily available in the US.

I have to confess, the mess last year kind of "converted" me away from US suppliers. After a while, when you get hassled every step of the way here in the US, and you find that their price is somewhere around $1 per per day, the easy access and 11- or 12-cent/pill prices of overseas suppliers become pretty attractive. So I hadn't even looked at U.S. suppliers in almost a year (since last I worked on the article above).

One last note: I thought I should at least check on what I wrote last October before simply posting it.

I found the following update in About.com's Thyroid area:

A brief status update on "Current Drug Shortages" posted at the FDA website on March 2, 2010, states that, as of February 12, 2010:

"Forest reports manufacturing issues involving the raw material and RLC reports increased demand. FDA has not ordered Forest or RLC to remove these thyroid (desiccated) tablets from the market. This has been a long term shortage and any new information will be posted as soon as it becomes available. FDA approved levothyroxine products continue to be available from multiple manufacturers."

It's good to see that the FDA felt it necessary to include the brief statement that they have not ordered Forest or RLC to remove these thyroid (desiccated) tablets from the market. This very likely reflects a concern on the part of the FDA that it not be perceived as taking action that can endanger the many thyroid patients who rely on natural thyroid drugs, and may be a response to thousands of inquiries by telephone, email and fax the FDA received from thyroid patients and practitioners regarding concerns about various FDA actions regarding natural desiccated thyroid drugs.

The FDA's statement does not address a critical issue for thyroid patients however. According to the natural desiccated drug manufacturers, the FDA has indicated that they still consider natural desiccated thyroid drugs "unapproved," and intend to call for a new drug application process for natural desiccated thyroid drugs.

This leaves us with several important questions:

• When will the FDA requirement for new drug application for natural desiccated thyroid drugs be issued?
   
• Will the FDA call for the faster (and less costly) abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) or the lengthier, costlier complete new drug application (NDA) process?
   
• Will natural desiccated thyroid drugs be allowed to remain on the market during the ANDA/NDA process?

We still do not have answers to these questions, though manufacturers are still working behind the scenes with the FDA and with their own scientific experts, doing their best to ensure that natural desiccated thyroid drugs will continue to be available in sufficient supply to all patients who need them in the short term, and throughout a federally-mandated approvals process.

--Natural Desiccated Thyroid Drugs: An Update
March 2010 - - Where Are We Now?

Thorough doctor

I continue looking for help with my rheumatoid arthritis.

The other day, Sarita saw an article in The Week about studies that have shown "a link between certain pollutants, including PCBs and DDT, and conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis." Moreover, "people who'd lost 22 pounds or more in a decade had the highest levels of pollutants in their bloodstreams."

Hmmmm. I did make an effort, beginning about three years ago, to cut back and lose some weight. Indeed, by the time the rheumatoid started hitting, I had lost a good 30 pounds or so. (The day I hit 199.5, I said to myself, "So far and no further!" I'm now bouncing somewhere between 159 and 163.)

And there is the matter that Jonelle has been going to an ND (Naturopathic Doctor) in hopes of "healing up" or "strengthening up" to be able safely to bring another baby to term.

In evaluating Jonelle's present condition, the doctor discovered she is high in a number of heavy metals . . . and has been giving her certain injections to help remove them from her system. (It's called chelation.)

After reading the article in The Week, Sarita said, "I want you to go to Jonelle's doctor."

So I called the office and set up an appointment, which I kept yesterday afternoon.

Prior to the appointment, however, the doctor sent me a patient profile/health history questionnaire the likes of which I have never seen. Eight pages of fine details.

I thought: "Man! If I didn't have at least a vague idea of why he asks all these questions [except the one where he wants my Social Security #!], I might think he was massively invading my privacy."

After we met, however, I was even more impressed by the thoroughness of his interview and exam. We spent two hours together . . . and I am scheduled to go back in a week for beginning diagnosis and health improvement plan.

*********

While I'm at it, let me share two things he said that struck me during our time together yesterday.

1. "Let me tell you about my philosophy of health. I believe we were created to be healthy. We are supposed to be healthy. We should be able to self-heal . . . if we could only get out of our own way. So when I meet a person who is unhealthy, I ask, 'What is this person doing--or not doing--that is getting in the way?"
   
   He said that he believes good health is based on four legs or foundations:
   
   
   1. What we ingest--i.e., what we eat or don't eat and what we drink or don't drink.
       
   2. Movement or exercise.
       
   3. Sleep--both quantity and quality. And,
       
   4. What he called Interconnectedness--which includes not only social relations, but spirituality. How are we doing in relation to others (which may include God or the spirit world).
       
   "Take that four-legged bench over there," he said. "With four legs under it, you and I could both sit on it and it will hold us comfortably. Because it has four strong legs.
   
   "If I remove a leg, it will still stand. And, in fact, if I am careful, I could even sit on it and it would hold me. But if I sit in the wrong place, I'm going to collapse it.
   
   "And if it has only two legs? It cannot stand any longer. It will collapse.
   
   "So I want to know how you are doing with your four foundation pillars."
    
2. We got onto the subject of thyroxin--a hormone I have had to take ever since I had my thyroid removed back in the mid-80s as a result of Grave's Disease.
   
   I mentioned to him some of the hassles I have faced as a result of seeking to use natural thyroxin (desiccated and processed bovine or porcine thyroid gland) rather than the synthetic variety. (Natural thyroxin contains the full complement of thyroxin variants--T4, T3, T2, T1 and calcitonin, at least, while the standard synthetic contains T4 only. There is an additional synthetic that includes T3. None for T2, T1, calcitonin, or any of the other minor fractions that may be present--and unstudied--in desiccated thyroid gland.)
   
   My regular doctor, for example, is convinced that synthetic is better. He really doesn't want me to be taking the natural stuff. (I had one doctor who refused to treat me if I refused to take the synthetic. My current doctor was unwilling to help me locate natural thyroxin when the FDA made it almost impossible legally to acquire it last year. Happily, though he is obviously critical of my approach, he lets me "do my thing," as it were.)
   
   My naturopath, yesterday, said he has found, in his practice, that 9 out of 10 patients do better on the natural thyroxin, but, for some reason, one out of 10 seems, actually, to do better on the synthetic. (Point--which I had not considered before: I ought not simply to assume natural is better.)
   
   But what really bothered me was what he had to say about why he believes most doctors prefer to prescribe synthetic hormones.
   
   He referenced John Abramson's Overdosed America as his source.
   
   He said that Abramson shows how the Journal of the American Medical Association has a practice (policy?) of printing only those scientific studies that are critical of the non-synthetic hormones or that show them in a bad light. "There are ten studies showing the efficacy of the natural hormones, but JAMA won't talk about them. But when it gets one study that is critical, it will publish that immediately."
   
   Supposing he had accurately recalled Abramson's data, and supposing Abramson is right, he concluded, "With that kind of input, you really can't criticize mainstream medical doctors for believing that natural hormones are ineffective."

And I wonder: Can't we?

My Passport to India

For some reason, I never thought about saying anything about this on my personal blog until just now.

But whether you are the parent of school-age children, or you have some other role in life that puts you in contact with children, or even if you might simply find this interesting . . . I'd like to invite you to check out My Passport to India, a "learning and giving adventure" cosponsored by Sonlight Curriculum, but put together and operated by Mission India.

Here's the original invitation letter that Sarita sent.

But you can skip that and simply jump to watch the wonderful (fun!) 1:30 introductory video. . . .

Henry Ford's $5 Day

Perhaps you, like me, have heard of Henry Ford's $5 day: how Ford more than doubled the pay of his employees--making them, by far, the highest-paid workers in America back in the 1910's.

Perhaps, too, you have heard--as I have--that he did this because he was so far-seeing and so wise that he understood that, by paying his workers such high wages, they would be in a position to purchase his cars: he was, according to this story, almost some kind of utopian.

Today I read an article that explains Ford's thinking in a way that makes a lot more sense to me.

In essence, his wage increase may have helped his workers to afford the purchase of Ford motor cars. But that benefit was secondary. The primary purpose of the wage increases was for more mundane and businesslike.

In 1913, Ford had an employee turnover rate of 380%, which required hiring 52,000 workers annually to maintain a work force of 13,600. In addition to the cost of replacing workers, productivity suffered from a 10% absentee rate, and the workers who showed up were inexperienced and commonly shirked as much as they worked.

Higher wages remedied these problems. Anxious prospects lined up in hopes of being hired by Ford, who employed only those whose personal habits indicated they would be dependable workers as determined through investigations, including home visits, by his personnel department. Ford paid for dependability, and he got it.

In 1915, Ford's turnover rate fell to 16% as productivity soared. He reduced the Model T's price by 10% each year from 1914 to 1916, and his annual profit increased to $60 million from $30 million. Ford was quoted as saying that more than doubling wages "was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made."

Read that last sentence again: Doubling wages was one of the finest cost-cutting moves Ford ever made!

Now, that doesn't mean the same kind of move would yield similar results today. But at least at that time and in those circumstances, the high wages yielded dramatic cost-cutting benefits because they generated dramatic improvements in efficiency and consistency within Ford's labor force.

Having made this key legend-breaking observation, the author of the article I have quoted goes on to make some trenchant observations about America's economy today . . . and about government economic policies. They author says that the lessons we have been taught about Ford's pay raise--that Ford was trying to increase workers' income so that they would be in a position to purchase more--is exactly backwards. But that backwards lesson is what our federal government has used to justify its economic stimulus policy decisions from the 1930s till today.

The prevailing view in the 1930s was that increasing wages . . . would increase purchasing power . . . , and therefore demand.

This view was the justification for polices that raised hourly wages, . . . strengthen[ed] labor unions, shorten[ed] workweeks, . . . restrict[ed] pay cuts, and raised prices by destroying agricultural products and reducing competition.

Unfortunately, the . . . political approach to increasing purchasing power was to reduce production, while Ford's approach was to increase production. The political approach failed because any policy that reduces the production of goods and services that people want to purchase necessarily reduces purchasing power.

This is just as true today as it was in the 1930s. Yet, almost without exception, the Obama administration's hope for economic recovery relies on the demand-side fantasy that purchasing power can be increased with policies that reduce supply by increasing production cost or destroying what has already been produced.

The "Cash for Clunkers" program required the destruction of perfectly good cars. Companies bankrupted by high production costs were bailed out with taxes on the profits of companies that kept production costs under control.

The recently passed health care legislation is poised to increase the cost of doing business in ways that are complex and uncertain. Firms are threatened with proposed legislation that would increase the cost and reduce the productivity of workers by eliminating secret ballots in union elections.

All these policies, and more, are being justified by the Obama administration, at least in part, as a way of increasing purchasing power and generating jobs.

But they are retarding the market adjustments needed to lower production costs and expand the supply of goods . . . [on] which increases in real purchasing power and real wages depend.

A distant butterfly and a subtle quake . . .

From last week's The Week.

Executive editor Francis Wilkinson wrote two brief paragraphs in which he described a cross-street relationship he developed with a female jogger on the way to work each morning over the course of a year or more.

Though we never spoke, I used to see her regularly at the start of my morning commute. Middle-aged, perhaps a few years older than me, she jogged north, against traffic. . . . Her stride was easy, with a kind of singsong quality about it, and as I walked south, on the opposite sidewalk, I would wave and smile. She routinely responded--cheeks blossoming, eyes twinkling, teeth smiling--with a sunniness that could take the chill out of the air. She was a walking--jogging--affirmation of the human race.

Then Wilkinson's schedule changed. He no longer saw her . . . until a couple of weeks ago when, once more, he was walking south while she ran north.

I saw her again. . . . She had a determined, almost grim, air about her, and her facial muscles appeared rigid. The graceful singsong was gone, replaced by a mechanistic, utilitarian motion. Tension seemed to course through her limbs. I lifted my hand to wave, but her head was fixed straight ahead; she didn’t notice. I wondered if a distant butterfly had flapped its wings, sending tremors through the life of this stranger, changing her forever. All I could do was stand and watch as the ground beneath me registered a subtle quake.

--Any distant butterflies affecting your life?

Answering a question

I was reading in Luke 13 this morning and was struck by how Jesus answered--or did he fail to answer?--a direct question. Before we get to the question, I need to give you the immediately preceding segment. I think it provides context for the question. After we've digested the context and the question, then I'd like to remark on the answer:

He said . . . , "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches."
And again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened."

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?"

--Luke 13:18-23a, ESV

In context, I think the question makes sense. The Jews had always been taught that they were a special people, set apart by God from everyone else. They were few. The nations were many. So what was this that Jesus was talking about that the kingdom of God would become a tree in which all the birds of the air might make their nests, or a kind of leavening that could leaven a batch of bread so large that it could make a small modern commercial bakery proud.

"So how many are really going to be saved?" someone asks. "Is it many . . . or few?

And then Jesus answers:

And he said to them, "Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' then he will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.' Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.' But he will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!' In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last."

--Luke 13:23b-30, ESV

What struck me: Jesus doesn't answer the question directly. In some ways, he doesn't answer it at all.

However, he urges his hearers to pay attention to the primary point: "Don't worry about how many, in general. Look to yourself! What are you doing? Where are you going? How are you getting there?"

The impact of a caring teacher . . .

I glanced at the October issue of Reader's Digest that just came to our house and happened across an article that moved me very deeply. In Reader's Digest the article is titled My Mother's Gift. In the Washington Post, from which it comes, it is titled Talented and Gifted: In one year, she taught her students to see the wonders of their talents -- then and forever. It's written by a regular columnist in the Washington Post, Steve Hendrix. Steve's article reminded me of my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Strange. Mr. Strange ran our classroom much the way Mrs. Hendrix ran her classroom for talented and gifted fourth- and fifth-graders about 10 years later.

A big difference: Mrs. Hendrix was teaching in a small town in South Georgia; Mr. Strange was teaching sons and daughters of PhD students and university professors at Stanford University in the late 60s. Escondido Elementary school in Stanford was designed for cutting-edge teaching to help these children of well-educated parents reach their full potential. Mrs. Hendrix's school, by contrast, was unprepared to help students even imagine that college was a worthy goal. But Mrs. Hendrix was. . . .

Before I recount a bit of her story, I should probably note that as I worked on helping to found Sonlight Curriculum 15 to 20 years ago, I often had my classmates at Escondido Elementary in mind. And Mr. Strange was in my mind as well. I wanted to be as creative as Mr. Strange was and to offer students the kind of wondrous opportunity to investigate the world that he gave us. And I wanted to make sure that every Peter Hogness, Philip Scowcroft, Bruce Jaffe, Mark Coombs . . . or John Holzmann--not to mention all our other classmates, male and female, most of whom I can only recall by first name at the moment . . . --I wanted to make sure that all our modern equivalent peers would receive an education that permitted them to develop to the fulness of their potential.

As I read the testimonies of Sonlight moms (see the "Sonlight Moments" in the right sidebar of this blog), I sense that maybe Sarita and I achieved my goal.

But back to the story of Mrs. Hendrix. . . .

The kids selected for [her] class were seven fifth-graders and 14 fourth-graders, all of whom were testing at three or four years above grade level.

"They were taking the tops out of any test we could give them," recalled Patsy Knotts, the [school district]'s curriculum director at the time. "They were bored stiff."

It was just as the gifted education movement was coming into vogue among progressive educators, and Knotts persuaded her superintendent to give it try. At first, not all parents were enthusiastic about pulling their kids out of the regular classroom. One father told Knotts he didn't want his son labeled an egghead. But the kids themselves knew they were already marked -- by their fellow students. They were geeks decades before geeks ruled the economy, culture and eyewear design.

"We were all pretty odd by South Georgia standards," said Frank Lowrey, at that time a fourth-grader. "We didn't hunt or fish. We liked 'Star Trek.' It wasn't always comfortable in other classrooms. We didn't always fit in."

Suddenly, they found themselves in a room where reading wasn't mocked, where being creative, outlandish, even effete didn't risk a punch from a recess tough.

"It was a sanctuary," Christopher said. "Before that, I was hiding out. She looked us each in the eye and knew us as individuals."

During the first month of school, Mrs. Hendrix visited each of her new students at home. She wanted to meet their parents and brace them for the pell-mell year to follow. But mostly she wanted to give the students a chance to see her off that front-of-the-class pedestal.

Mrs. Kipp served cherry pie. While the grown-ups talked, Neill and his new teacher played a game of chess on the couch. At the end of the game and the visit, she looked steadily at Neill and said, "I can tell you're a very patient person."

"It was just a casual compliment," he said. "But I can still picture her saying it. Ever since that moment, I have thought of myself as a patient person." . . .

It was this kind of attention to detail and personal involvement with her students that set Mrs. Hendrix apart from all the other teachers . . . and that made her input in these children's lives memorable even today, 34 years later.

One of the first big class projects, Mrs. Hendrix announced, would be a play. They were going to stage Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." Neill and a fifth-grader named Becky Thurman would direct. Everyone would work on the set. Mothers, of course, would sew the costumes.

The production encompassed almost all their subjects. Building scenery would reveal geometry. Decorating them was art. Decoding the dense English was reading. Dickens's portrayals of class and poverty were portals to social studies. . . .

Brad Ewing, then a fourth-grader, was the town crier in Scrooge's London. That was fine, but what he really got into was his second job, running the spotlight.

"I really loved electronics and taking things apart," Brad said, "and that was not something I had been allowed to do in school much."

Despite his interest in things electronic, Brad was no obvious prodigy. "Based on my grades and test scores, most guidance counselors would say anything but math or engineering."

But Mrs. Hendrix invited him to bring in some of his home-wired gizmos. She let Brad and Frank rig the class bulletin board with working lights. For a lesson in arithmetic, Brad assembled a kind of abacus out of colored blocks, astounding his teacher.

"She said, 'One day, I'm going to be able to say that I knew the person who invented these really cool things,'" Brad recalled. "I became kind of determined to make that come true."

His mother remembers it, too.

"I picked him up one day, and he said, 'I'm going to be an electrical engineer,'" June Ewing said. "He came home happy almost every day from that class. He had so much fun learning, and that has stayed with him."

For Cynthia Counts, it was the mock court.

Forgive me. I'd love to quote more. I'd love to point out how Mrs. Hendrix's use of Dickens' play is a perfect example of the kind of thing I know many masterful homeschoolers do. But I'm going to stop quoting the article at this point and let you read the original.

For the most moving parts, I particularly recommend Page 5 in the online version of the article.

Enjoy!

Back after the better part of a month away . . .

Two weeks in the western Mediterranean, visiting Lisbon, Portugal; Tangier, Morocco; Malaga, Spain (and the Alhambra); Ibeza, Spain; Alicante, Spain (and Seville); Barcelona, Spain; St. Tropez, France; Cannes, France (and a couple of perfumers in Grasse, France); Monte Carlo, Monaco; Portofino, Italy; and, finally, Livorno--and Pisa and Lucca--Italy!

Some wonderful memories.

Then a few days at home followed by a board meeting and a nine-day Family Fun Week (including burial of Gracie Lou's body).

And I'm rarin' to go.

Hopefully, I can take some time here or there to begin blogging again. Maybe I can share some of the highlights (including a few photos) from our Mediterranean trip and, even, from our Family Fun Week.

Meanwhile, I "just" wanted to say "hi" . . . and share a little piece of wonderment.

Take a look at this 30-photo essay of "Awesome College Labs."

Anything look interesting to you?