Channels for This Blog

Once again, here is what this blog is all about:

• Holistic health


• Economics


• Renewable energy


• Podcasting


• Blogging


• Open source software


• Enterprise integration


• Marketing


• Copyleft


• Podsafe music

More on these topics coming up!

Two Schools of Thought in Healthcare

It is my observation that there are two schools of thought in healthcare. You could call one "Western medicine" and the other "holistic healthcare" but it's more than that.

Here they are:

1. Your body is a complex machine. Interlocking parts of this machine break down for no known reason, and when they do, they must be serviced by someone else.


2. Your body is alive. It is an organism that has intelligence in every cell, and it gives you all the signs and signals you need to allow your body to heal itself. Everything in your body, including disease, happens for a reason.

I believe that each of us has the perspective at either extreme, or somewhere in the middle. For me, I'm on the extreme of number 2 - the holistic healthcare perspective. All the evidence I see points to our bodies being alive, being organisms. There is just nothing machine-like about my body. One has to examine specific body parts or even cells in total isolation to get the thought that the body is a machine. As soon as you factor in the mind-body connection, or the self-healing capability, the machine paradigm completely dissolves.

What do you think?

Holistic Pet Care

Looking at the searches entered regarding "holistic" I found something that surprised me.

Many of the terms I was expecting were there - holistic medicine, holistic health, holistic doctor, etc. - but there were a bunch of terms that I did not expect.

• holistic dog food


• holistic veterinarian


• holistic pet food


• holistic pet care


• etc.

All this stuff about pets! Amazing! Then I was forced to ask myself - Why? Why are so many people interested in helping their pets live the "holistic lifestyle." In fact, why are these search terms showing up at the top of the list of "most searched."

I think I have an answer.

I realized this when I saw my naturopath the last visit. She prescribed some very tough things for me to do in a period of three weeks. Cut out all dairy. Cut out sugar. No grains (just for 3 weeks). Exercise at least 5 times a week.

This is tough! Even to do this for 3 weeks is just murder. I'm happy to say I'm doing pretty good on this plan (2.5 weeks into it), except for the damn exercising. But that will come too.

Holistic healthcare is very difficult for the patient. It is constantly demanding lifestyle changes, and this is one of the hardest things to do. Breaking our stupid habits.

But, relating this back to pet care, I realized holistic healthcare becomes a whole lot easier when you just have to make someone else do it. You can just change your pet's food, and whether they like it or not, you've just done something holistic! Wasn't that easy?

Holistic healthcare is much easier to do to someone else than to do for yourself. I think that's why holistic pet care is just as popular as holistic human care.

Plus, we love our pets, as a man in a household with 3 cats (Teaser, Pixel and Ginkgo) can attest.

Why Do I Refuse to Watch TV Commercials?

This is a strange question for me. Why do I refuse to watch TV commercials. I say "TV" specifically, because it's not like I rip out the ads from a magazine when I reading it, or that I shield my eyes from billboards on the side of the road. But TV commercials just irk the heck out of me.

I mean, I'm a businessperson. I completely understand that these are just other businesspeople who want to communicate their products and services to me. I also understand very well that these ads are paying for the production of the TV shows that I love. I do love TV. I love a lot of TV shows, these come to mind:

• Veronica Mars


• Daily Show with Jon Stewart


• South Park


• Rome (series on HBO - no commercials!)
• 
  
• The Simpsons


• Commander in Chief


• The West Wing

I love these shows. I mean, really love them. So why won't I support them??

I have a TiVO connected to my DirecTV satellite dish. It allows me to record my programs and watch them whenever I want. I can pause live TV, and I can fast forward through commercials of recorded information.

When I'm watching live TV, I watch one channel until the commercials come on, then I pause that feed, flip to the other feed (my satellite can handle a maximum of two incoming feeds simultaneously) and watch that until the commercials come on, then flip back and fast forward the first feed through the now-recorded commercials.

I just friggin' hate them. Why? Don't I understand that they are just "to pay the bills?" My beloved shows would not exist without the commercials?

Maybe it's because commercials have become so poorly done. Loud music, fast voices, flashing images - it's really an awful combination. The most successful commercial this past year, or infomercial, I should say - is the Natural Cures infomercial with Kevin Trudeau. I've even watched parts of it.

But I must try to dig deeper to find out this aversion to commercials that I have. Even when my wife is watching TV in the other room and I'm in my office working, I'll yell out to her to fast-forward through the commercials (she always forgets). Why do I do that?

Just my thoughts.