Posts by Joe Wylie
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Sumatran buses in the 70s - oh hell.
A winding stretch of road between Parapat and Sibolga, with the bus's sound system playing a soppy Indo-pop version of The Archies' Sugar Sugar. Gave my precious window seat to an Australian who bore a striking resemblance to JC. A bad case of motion sickness, with the clear & present danger of hurling. As he lolled suffering on the window ledge like something from The Passion of the Christ a truck appeared heading in the opposite direction, its huge Batak driver barely a meter from the window. With a big grin he leant over to the sufferer and asked "How's Mary?" -
Thanks Chaos Buddha.
I guess that only leaves the questions of the economics of naturally sourced vs. synthesised (and therefore patentable?), and the impact of molecular biology on effective synthesis.
Ben:so much of the natural healing world is so unregulated, so untested, and so fucken patronizing about the other medical world that has served me for decades . . .
The medical establishment can also be 'fucken patronizing' at times. There was an exchange of views in the Listener in the late 80s where a leading medical academic openly gloated over the death of a terminally ill cancer patient who'd undergone a radical and untested form of treatment overseas.
That said, there can be few things more galling for a chronic sufferer than to be told that a successful cure depends on their 'really wanting' to get well. It's essentially a shifting of responsibility to the patient, and an attitude you're unlikely to encounter from conventional practitioners.
One thing that instantly convinces me that I'm dealing with an incompetent is an unsolicited lecture about the evils of 'allopathy', and the generally corrupt state of conventional medicine. If the efficacy of their methods doesn't speak for itself, they shouldn't be practicing.
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I recall reading somewhere that the majority of medicines in the modern pharmacopeia - i.e., all therapeutic medicines and drugs, both copyrighted and generic - are, rather than being synthesised, still largely derived from naturally-occuring sources. While the definitions I've used are a little sloppy, can anyone clarify this?
Apart from simple curiosity, I'm wondering how this affects the motivations of pharmaceutical companies in, say, the lavender/tea tree oils example.
Do they have a vested interest in discrediting the products, and if so, why? -
And palm oil?
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Once again, this is just pure twaddle.
If this bill passes, no-one will be able to produce certifiably pure twaddle due to high compliance costs.
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If you can find an Australian producer of leptospernum scoparium essential oil who's still in business - hell I'll give it a go!
You're the expert Eleanor, but from my fleeting experience as a consumer the Manuks oil available in Oz all seems to come from NZ.
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Manuka grows nowhere else -
While manuka is the NZ name for Leptospermum scoparium, it's also native to southeast Australia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptospermum_scoparium -
Shouldn't that be "If science can't provide answers to some health issues then few things can" . . . or perhaps "If science can't provide answers to all health issues then nothing can."
Either way, it reads more like a statement of faith than an objective truth.
Isn't the urge to keep on 'looking and finding more answers' inherent in human nature?Salicylic acid, as a primitive but effective precursor of aspirin, has been in use since BC. Modern science's role was to analyse why it worked, and then to further develop its effectiveness.
I'd suggest that elevating science to the status of a beneficial entity is simply the flipside of attaching a quasi-mystical 'naturalness' to alternative remedies.
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Hockey's an amiable plodder who's been falling for these kind of ambushes ever since he entered Federal politics. Doesn't seem to have done him any harm.
Not stupid but ponderous.
Often matched in radio & TV debates against the Federal Labor left's Anthony Albanese, who repeatedly wipes the floor with him. Hockey doesn't appear to mind.
Replaced the mega-loathsome Tony Abbot as kinder 'n gentler face of Workplace Relations.
Given to photo-ops with endangered frogs and marsupials.
Changed the colour of Liberal Party flyers in his North Sydney electorate from blue to green to capture local prog-Liberal vote.A bit like John Key, only larger & slower-moving.
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Is my uncle a freak of nature . . .?
Probably. Still, he might enjoy Pere Ubu's Ice Cream Truck. Here's a bit of how it goes:
There's too much music in the land.
You hear it everywhere.
Everybody's in a band - can't get enough of it.
Brother Jimmy,
Cousin Ray,
Mom and Dad on bass and drums -
someone here's just gotta quit.Baby! Baby! Baby! Come here quick.
The melody's about to make me sick.
Baby! Baby! Baby! Shut that door.
I don't think I can stand anymore.It's not the sugar.
It's not the sticky sludge.
People wanna eat that stuff I don't hold a grudge.
It's that music - there's too much of it.
I wish someone had the guts to quit.Writers: Cutler-Jones-Krauss-Maimone-Ravenstine-Thomas
©1989 Ubu Projex, administered by Bug Music.
Lyrics by David Thomas