Does Pollution Affect Our Health? You Betcha!

A paper published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine found a very strong correlation between deaths from lung cancer, etc. and the pollution levels in cities. They surveyed cities in Massachusetts, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Kansas and found that air cleanup played a big part in reducing deaths.

Here's the article, as reported in the Indianapolis Star (original story from the New York Times).

Hydrogen Successfully Produced from 100% Biodiesel

Somebody has figured out how to produce hydrogen (for hydrogen fuel cells) from only biodiesel, which itself comes from vegetables.

Is this a start to creating effective, cheap hydrogen fuel? Hope so!

An e-Book on Cold Fusion

Here's a free e-Book on Cold Fusion. It is surprisingly thorough! I think cold fusion is the right kind of topic where the people who actually understand it and know it works are so frustrated that no one "gets it" that they're willing to put out good, free information like this.

It's written for a lay audience, although it is still a tough read for the average person. Thank you to Jed Rothwell for putting the effort into this project and allowing us to increase our knowledge about this important topic.

Here's the e-Book.

FDA Resurrects an MS Drug Known to Kill

The FDA has decided to bring back a drug that it took off the market last year. The drug, marketed as Tysabri, is meant to help with symptoms of multiple sclerosis. However, in a large scale test, there was one confirmed fatality of a rare brain disease called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) and one additional case (non-fatal). I don't know how rare this PML is, but two cases in a sample of 3,000 seems like a lot.

But the FDA brought it back again anyway. It seems like they have a very high tolerance for the "side effects" of drugs. This columnist is outraged (as he always is).

Read the FDA's reasoning for bringing it back here. I was especially interested to read "No additional cases of PML were found." How many do we need to find??

Podcast 9 - What the Bleep?

The latest podcast is up on Holistic Health Nation. This time I have a great conversation with Jody Dzuranin, a life coach from Harmony House, about the movie "What the Bleep?"

Join us!

Cool Podcast Episode Coming Up! (#9)

I just finished editing this week's podcast. I'm so excited! It's my first shot at having a co-host, and I decided to ask Jody Dzuranin, a life coach here in Columbus, to join me for the experiment.

It went great!

We talk about the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" which deals with the intersection of physics and faith.

This movie had a big impact on me, and, it seems that Jody got a lot from it as well.

Unfortunately, I haven't uploaded the podcast yet, so you'll have to wait until Wednesday morning to download it.

If you're reading this after Wednesday, March 22, you can get the new podcast episode here.

Comedy Central and West Wing

Comedy Central is having problems because a recent episode of "South Park" taunted Scientology, and one of the cast members of South Park quit over it. As a result, Comedy Central has refused to air reruns of that episode.

In a similar story, the West Wing, a long running show that I've always loved, has just been canceled.

Slate magazine proposes a unique twist. What if the West Wing was reborn on iTunes? What if they just kept making the show, but put the episodes on iTunes for sale at $1.99? Would they be able to make enough money to keep going?

And what if South Park gets canceled from Comedy Central (a division of Viacom)? Could they be continued in iTunes pay-per-downloads?


This is so interesting. I think video blogs and podcasts would see a huge upswing in popularity if something like this happened? Suddenly, all the South Park or West Wing fans would be running for the iTunes software and frantically downloading their shows. Meanwhile, they'd notice that there was other cool stuff there too!

This is worth watching. Here's the link to the Slate story.

Don't Sue "Big Food"

It seems that parents have taken to suing the big food companies for "brainwashing" their children into wanting bad food.

But doesn't the parent have to actually buy the food before the child can eat it? This seems like another example of parents trying to find other people to blame for their poor parenting skills.

But then, I've never had to be a parent, so what do I know?

Here's the link.

I Couldn't Find the Prejudice

Mohammed A.R. Galadari recently wrote an article in the Khaleej Times in the United Arab Emirates called "New York is New York."

In it, he says how he went to New York City to write an article on the prejudice against Muslims there. But he couldn't find any.

The 800,000 plus Muslims in New York City were not encountering prejudice, as far as he could tell.

"The city has a big heart, and treats all as equal. That's the greatness about it."

What a great message.

Here's the link.

I'm Out of the Loop

I feel bad when someone from Columbus starts talking to me about some local news item. I have to look back at them blankly because I just don't follow the local Columbus, Ohio news at all.

Until today, I didn't really know why this was. I mean, I knew that I felt that the Columbus Dispatch, our daily newspaper, was amateurish and totally disconnected from our community (like me!). I knew that our local newscasters have had so many face lifts and chin tucks that they have begun to look like aliens, making the news completely unwatchable. Nevermind the ridiculous stories they masquerade as news.

But was that enough to cause this pathological aversion to local news?

However, the answer to my nonchalance to local news hit me in the face today when I found out that Yahoo now has a "local news" feature. Maybe I only like to get my news from the Web??

Nope. I jumped into the Local News section of Yahoo and was aghast at the news items.

• Three sixth-graders were suspended Thursday from Galloway Ridge Intermediate School for either handling or looking at a toy handgun.


• Many Roman Catholics in Ohio are being told to go ahead and eat corned beef on St. Patrick's Day.


• Anyone looking for a new place to shop may want to check out Legacy Crossings on Ohio 95 East where preparation for the arrival of Kohl's Department Store has begun.

How did this become the news? The rest was a series of trials, crimes, car accidents, scandals and fires.

I'm sorry for the people who were robbed, hit, victimized and burned, but is this news? It is not news to me.

I am interested in:

• politics


• accomplishments of people


• cool ideas about how to improve the world or my life


• trends


• stories about people's lives


• advances in science

These, except for politics, were totally absent on the Yahoo page, and, of course, in our newspapers and newscasts.

Basically, I want news to be something that makes my life better after I've watched it.

Here's an example. The History International channel (Hint) had a show on a few weeks ago about the Normans and how they took over England, under William the Conqueror. I feel I am better off now that I have that historical lesson under my belt.

What "historical lessons" are happening right now in Columbus, Ohio that would make me a better, more knowledgeable person?

Radio, TV, newspapers --- Don't you know what I want? Doesn't anyone else want this besides me??

Maybe not.

P.S. I have to admit, I don't watch national news on TV either. Unless you count Jon Stewart and the Daily Show (and Bill Maher).

Oh, yes, and Google News that I can customize to leave out the junk.

Podcast 8 - Your Network of Practitioners

Podcast 8 is available at Holistic Health Nation.

It's about creating a network of practitioners for yourself and your family. Finding the right "first line of defense" then linking up to other modalities in body, mind and energy practices.

Next week, I hope to have a co-host, Jody Dzuranin, who will chat with me about the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know" and I'm also asking her to pick the music. Should be fun!

In future podcasts, I hope to have an interview with the lead investigator of the Ohio Dietetics Board, as well as other interesting guests!

GIMP and OpenOffice Not Written by Hobbyists

I had the good fortune to get a comment from Maurits on yesterday's post about GIMP and OpenOffice.

I was wrong. GIMP and OpenOffice are not really written by "hobbyist" programmers.

Instead, there is a core team of just a few programmers who contribute a large amount of the work. Then, a large number of hobbyists around the world contribute to that body of work.

I had the impression that the work was much more spread out.

Here is Maurits' comment:

GIMP and OpenOffice aren't written by hobbyists. There's a small core team of developers that are paid for and do probably 80 - 90 % of the work. The remaining 10 - 20 % is done by a large group of hobbyists like me who try to free up a few hours in the evenings.

Look for example at the ChangeLog file for the GIMP. You will see that most work is done by 3 or 4 developers.

Thanks Maurits!

Individualism

I'm currently reading a book called "The Support Economy" written by Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin.

I'm only about half way through the book, and it's a bit slow going. However, I'm starting to get the premise. It's all about individualism. Over the past thirty years, people have become more and more compelled to find their own uniqueness, to express it and be heard.

This is the major force in consumerism today. People respond more to products and services that allow them to express their uniqueness than just stuff that we need for everyday life.

This is the idea of the book.

When I combine this idea with something I heard from Adam Curry, it really gets interesting.

Adam Curry said that he predicted years ago that everyone would have their own radio station, TV station and newspaper.

He couldn't have seen the exact unfolding, but it is interesting now that we have podcasts (radio), video podcasts (TV) and blogs (newspapers).

Now we have all these ways that people can a) find their uniqueness, b) express it and c) be heard.

But how will this huge pile of podcasts, video and blogs be accessed practically?

Just search engines doesn't seem to be the answer.

There will need to be ways to aggregate the content. Maybe directories, lists or feeds.

Ways to quickly, seamlessly aggregate the content for the listeners/viewers/readers.

Right now, it is a big accomplishment for a blog, etc. to be featured in the big media (CBS, USA Today, etc.). But I wonder if that will continue to be viewed as such? Will the aggregation of our own media become more interesting than the big media features?

That's probably idealistic.

But what if our own individual stories, told by ourselves, got to be more popular than the latest war, Tom Cruise sighting or white woman missing in the Caribbean Islands.

Who knows? It's possible. Maybe.

How will these blogs be themed? Will they follow the stream of consciousness of the blogger/podcaster? Will they be as exact a match to the blogger's personality? Or will the blogger try to find an audience, and then stay true to that audience?

I'm finding this dichotomy in my own work. My blog (here) tends to be a stream of consciousness thing. I put whatever I want into this. It is always exactly in tune with ME, but I do not have an audience in mind. Basically, people seem to be coming here through the search engines. When they find something they like, they read it and, if they really like it, they read a few other posts.

But the podcast is audience-driven. It's about holistic healthcare and that's it. Everything is meant to fit the person who is looking for natural solutions to health problems.

I wouldn't dream of going on some rant like this in my podcast. I have no clue why that is.

Maybe because it takes more effort to put a podcast together than a blog entry.

I've also noticed that what is fairly uninteresting as a single blog could be interesting when aggregated. For instance, the fact that Ed ate tofu for breakfast this morning is not that interesting.

But when you find out that 8% of all people eat tofu for breakfast, that is kind of interesting.

So, how will this work economically? Will this be a chance for people to make money with their hobbies?

Blogs, podcasts and video podcasts could be a great way for a person who is enthusiastic about a hobby to make some cash:

• history of U.S. presidents


• model trains


• stamp collecting


• embroidery


• home improvement


• computer programming / open source

I would be so interested to find out how an open source developer fits his "hobby" of open source programming into his daily life. It must be so much work to build software like Gimp and OpenOffice. How do they do it, and still hold down a day job?

Corporate Growth

Please understand, I'm a capitalist. I enjoy seeing a good company grow and prosper.

However, I read somewhere (I can't remember where) that there are only two things in our lives that start up and can be expected to grow and grow and never stop.

One is the corporation. Every quarter, we expect the corporation will grow. No matter how large the corporate becomes, it is expected to grow further. Not to grow is to stagnate.

There is one other thing that can be expected to grow indefinitely. That's cancer.

A cancerous tumor begins as a few cells, and grows cell by cell and inch by inch. You've seen pictures of massive tumors growing on a person's face or back. The tumor just never stops.

In a way, I hate to bring this up in my blog, because it is a simplistic comparisons and invites further analogies that may or may not apply.

But I also feel like I need to make this parallel. I think it's unhealthy for corporations that are already large to feel that they have to become bigger. I think some corporate leaders might agree with me. Once you're large, it is very difficult to grow. It's very unnatural. The only two reasons to grow are a) the stock market is demanding growth if stock prices are to rise and b) a CEO of a $5B is usually paid more than a CEO of a $1B company.

What is the alternative? I don't know. Obviously, I love the fact that my stock portfolio grows each year. And if I was a CEO, I'd have a hard time saying "Let's not grow this year."

But the comparison to a cancerous tumor sticks in my mind. I can't get rid of it.

Hugo Spowers and the Open Source Car (OSCar) Project

OSCar = Open Source Car

I met Hugo Spowers at a conference in Virginia several years ago. I was absolutely fascinated by his ideas and apparently, he has been very busy making them happen. He is definitely one of the most interesting people I've ever talked to.

Hugo is closely connected with the Morgan car company in Britain, a manufacturer of independent sports cars. Hugo's idea is to create fuel cell cars that are composed of "reusable parts" that he leases from the parts manufacturers. Essentially, he sees a manufacturing company that leases the parts from the parts makers, then they in turn lease the cars to us. We use the cars for a while then we turn them back in, and the company takes them apart and throws out the worn parts, keeping the rest and recycling them into new cars.

Hugo's car design features hydrogen fuel cells, brake-by-wire (digital), and every other new technology you can imagine. All done responsibly and cheaply.

You can read all about Hugo's ideas and action here in this article:

http://www.authenticbusiness.co.uk/archive/oscarproject/

Authoritative Sources

In order to have an organized society, it makes sense to have "experts" in an area. Health, let's say.

So, when issues about health come up, you go to the health experts. They give their opinions, they lead research on health issues, and they say what's good for your health and what's bad. And you believe them.

But what happens when this group of experts is contaminated? What happens when they begin bending their opinions of what's good or bad based on who pays the most? This is a well-known effect in all areas of expertise called "regulatory capture." It's when people who make decisions in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for instance, take high-paying jobs with the very companies they decided issues for/against.

This spells trouble.

And, unfortunately, the FDA is contaminated by dirty money. The FDA made decisions to bring products like Vioxx onto the market, despite volumes of evidence showing that Vioxx caused heart attacks. Once Merck took Vioxx off the market, the FDA decided it would be okay to bring it back, all based purely on a "pay for play" mentality.

There is no question that the FDA is corrupted.

But the question we have before us is this: What do we do? If we can no longer trust "the experts" who do we trust? Do we move to a system of "ask your pal" where everyone and no one is an expert? Or do we set up a new panel of experts, as easily corruptible as the first?

There is no easy answer. Your comments are welcome.

Inspired by Linspire

What if there was an operating system that just didn't get viruses?

What if you had something that looked and acted like Microsoft Windows, but didn't cost as much?

What if it was an operating system that would run on your existing computer - desktop or laptop?

It exists.

It's called Linspire. Linspire is a version of Linux that is meant to look as close to Windows as legally possible (it was originally called Lindows, for chrissakes). They've built this wonderful system, are selling it for cheap ($60), and almost all the applications can be purchased for a price of $20/year. That's $20 for the year to purchase whatever applications you want - the "all you can eat" model. Myself, I try to hold back at the buffet, but with Linspire, I just keep piling those applications on the plate. I love it!

The applications you can buy for the $20/year are many that you haven't heard of. Most of the are open source software. (Note: If you don't know what open source is, you haven't been reading my blog!)

So, you can't just pick up Microsoft Office, but you get the almost identical OpenOffice (file format compatible). You can't buy Adobe Photoshop, but you can easily get Gimp, which gives you feature-for-feature an equivalent experience.

The only person who should stay away from Linspire is the one who uses a special piece of software that only works on Windows. For instance, many naturopaths use an electro-dermal screening (EDS) system that only works on Microsoft Windows. Folks, you're stuck! Unless, you want to run your office computer on Windows and switch to Linspire at home.

Also, I don't recommend that you use the download-version of Linspire. Go to the computer store and get it on CD (or order it from their Website). I had lots of trouble getting the downloaded version to install (and another person I asked also had difficulties).

Give it a try. If you're unsure, get the Linspire demo disk and try it out. Or, if you're in the market for a new computer, get Linspire pre-installed at K-mart, Wal-mart or Koobox. Since Linspire is so much cheaper than Windows, these stores can sell these computer for between $300-400 easily (no monitor).

Oh -- and plug-and-play with your hardware? Fuhgettaboutit. I had no problems with my hardware, including my ancient wireless LAN cards to connect to my wireless network at home.

You owe it to yourself to try this operating system. I am writing this message on an Apple Macintosh, of which there are two in my house. The rest are Linspire (that includes 4 laptops).

Are Medical Boards Outdated??

Okay, so I'm still on my rant from the previous post...

This thing about "you must fit into MY concept of medicine or else you're crazy" has an even more ominous downside for society.

If medical boards are acting this way (and they certainly are in Ohio), they are actually instruments to SLOW DOWN THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE.

If the members of a board need to be able to fit each new type of medicine they hear about into their own concept of what medicine IS, then anything that is truly NEW, that shakes the foundations of our current ideas, will be fought by the boards and most of the new ideas will be defeated by the status quo.

Isn't this a shame? I've heard that science progresses one funeral at a time, but it is really a crime for medical science to operate this way, because people will die at the hands at the status quo. People who could be helped by new types of medicine (or ancient types of medicine revisited), will stay sick or die, and the status quo will make sure that there is basically a news blackout and an advertising blackout on the remedies that could very well save people's lives.

And that stinks.

Any ideas on ways we could replace the medical boards with something more up-to-date?

Practical Medicine Versus Conceptual Medicine

Is it really holistic medicine versus Western medicine?

Or is it practical medicine versus conceptual medicine?

Here's what brought this on for me.

There are (at least) two investigations of holistic practitioners going on right now in Ohio. The first I'm most aware of is my naturopath. She uses natural remedies, like herbs, dietary changes, etc. - to help me and the rest of her patients. No drugs, no surgery - she's not qualified nor would she want to do those things. If they're needed, she refers us to medical doctors.

She's being investigated by the Dietetics Board of Ohio. They're trying to prove that she is "practicing dietetics without a license." What's "practicing dietetics" you ask? Well, anyone who gives dietary advice to another person, paid or unpaid. Yes, you heard that right. Basically every parent on earth is "practicing dietetics," and most of the rest of us too.

Secondly, there's a chiropractor in Athens, Ohio who is being harassed by the chiropractic board because he does some energy healing in addition to, or often instead of, chiropractic manipulations.

His investigation floored me. Their first step was to force him to subject to a psychiatric examination. Huh? Yes, they wanted to find out if he was crazy.

Let me get this straight. If you don't practice medicine in exactly the way we think you should practice medicine, YOU MUST BE CRAZY!!

This brings me to my thesis. It really isn't about Western medicine versus holistic medicine. It is a question of whether you fit into my "concept" of medicine or not. If you don't, you must be nuts. Cu-koo. Off your rocker.

Hmmm. That is the only explanation I can find. Western medicine is actually Conceptual Medicine. You need to fit in with the concept, or else. The conceptual framework extends to randomized clinical trials. If we test it in a laboratory, and we perform it very scientifically, it MUST work. It just has too.

Unfortunately, when these techniques or drugs come out of the clinical trials, they often don't work in real life.

Real life is complicated. It has more randomness than you can factor out in a trial. Tons and tons of randomness.

Many of these studies are done with only a handful of subjects. A few dozen or a few hundred. Any statistician from another area would laugh out loud at doing a test in such a complex field of study as the body and thinking that a few dozen people could be reasonable representatives of the whole population. Silly!

You'd need at least several thousand. Even then, you're stuck.

"Randomized" is the problem. How can you randomize everything? Can you randomize out people's genes? How about the people who are contemplating suicide? I'm sure their immune systems are down, but people often don't talk about whether they're thinking about suicide, so they'll get in the study no problem. What about people who have just been exposed to a bunch of chemicals on their drive in to the study? Sat behind a big diesel truck for an hour in traffic. Immune system compromised. Study might as well be thrown out the window.

Holistic medicine, in my experience, is more about whether something works. If a holistic doctor tries a remedy with someone who has a certain set of conditions and it seems to work, the doctor will continue using it in that circumstance.

But this takes time. A doctor with more experience will be a better holistic doctor than a newbie.

But we can also learn from history. There are many therapies that are thousands of years old that Western medicine spurns (i.e. doesn't fit the "concept).

Ayurveda from India. Traditional Chinese Medicine. Why would we ignore so many years of "practical knowledge." Just arrogance. We invented a new "concept" and if the "old stuff" doesn't fit into it, we have to ignore it. And prosecute the practitioners of it.

My advice to you is --- pay attention to what works. What works for you, and what works for your friends. And what has worked for thousands of years. Don't make a "Vioxx decision."

Coming up...

A substitute for medical boards??

Inspired by Linspire

The Supportive Roles of Open Source and Commercial Software

Open source software seems to be in competition with commercial software today. But I think that there will be a symbiotic relationship between the two in a few years.

I believe open source will become a follow-up to commercial offerings. Companies will come out with innovative software packages that we will all buy. Then, as the commercial packages become stable and somewhat stale, the open source community will come out with a similar open source offering comparable to the commercial package. Then we'll all switch to the open source system, and the commercial software vendor will have to come up with something new to entice us to buy again.

On the other hand, the open source community is so full of innovation, they are likely soon to overtake the commercial world in innovative offerings. Right now, most work done in open source is mimicking the commercial systems. OpenOffice mimicks Microsoft Office. Gimp mimicks Adobe Photoshop. Adium mimicks AOL Instant Messenger.

But I expect this innovative group of people around the world will soon surprise us with applications we've never seen before. Applications the commercial world can't even dream of.

Podcast 5 - A New Holistic College

My next podcast is up and ready to go. It's about Cuyahoga Community College, a Cleveland college that is creating an entire campus for holistic healthcare and renewable energy career associate degrees.

Also, I have news about a new movie coming to theaters called "Side Effects," which chronicles the story of a young, female pharmaceutical sales rep who decided to "opt out" and wrote a book exposing the underbelly of the pharmaceutical indistry.

And I feature a collaborative, online word processing system called Writely.com.

Podcast 4 - Why Is Alternative Medicine So Hard?

I got this week's podcast out a little early, because I had roadtrips planned and have a staffing crisis back at the office.

The title for this week's podcast is "Why Is Alternative Medicine So Hard?" An investigation into why it's difficult to be a "compliant patient" of alternative medicine / holistic healthcare, and a few ideas on how to make it easier.

www.holistichealthnation.com

This was a fun one to do (actually, they've all been fun!).

Upcoming:

• Interview with Dr. Roland Chapdelaine of the Cuyahoga Community College, where he is creating associate degree holistic practitioner classes and a huge new wellness center and "incubator"


• A representative from the Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) to talk about his life and his remedies for illnesses

See you back soon!

Holistic Health Nation - Podcast 3 - Myths About Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)

I released the newest podcast for Holistic Health Nation this week. It's called "Myths About Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)." I'm having a really fun time doing these podcasts.

This episode is about Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which the President mentioned in the State of the Union address last week. As you probably know by now, I'm a big fan of HSAs, and I think they're going to help us fix the healthcare crisis. I even wrote a book about it!

I hope you decide to have a listen to the podcast. I've fixed the technical problems I was having with the formats in episodes 1 and 2, and I'm feeling ever more comfortable about talking to myself into a microphone.

And I just found out today that I'm going to be interviewing someone from the Edgar Cayce Foundation, known as Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) in Virginia Beach. We'll talk about Cayce's life and his folk remedies that worked so well for so many thousands of people, and that work today for millions! Hopefully, that episode will come in 2-3 weeks.

Customer Service and Airlines

So here I was, reading "The Support Economy," by Shoshana Zuboff, waiting for my friend Hong to arrive at the airport.

So says Shoshana:

In order to divert the U.S. Congress from a debate over a passenger bill of rights, the airline industry executed the Airline Customer Service Commitment in June 1999. The plan detailed numerous customer service improvements to be undertaken immediately. Depsite the commitment, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) found that customer complaints more than doubled in 1999 over the prior year, and complaints for the first four months of 2000 were up by 74 percent over 1999. They also estimated that the airlines themselves received as many as 400 complaints for every one complaint received by the DOT.

I'm reading this, and Hong and his wife show up, on time, actually. We go downstairs to get their luggage and they get two of the three bags. Then the baggage carousel stops and a lady comes out and says "If you haven't received your bags yet, that means they aren't coming. You'll have to come with me to fill out a lost baggage slip." Okay, that's understandable. Bags get lost sometimes.

But then I notice that about 25 people follow the lady to the lost baggage counter. This was a small plane, so probably about 60 passengers. Almost HALF had lost baggage!! Including Hong and his wife.

Airlines have always had bad service, ever since I can remember. But this is over the top! Hong has had to fly several times in the past year, and he said it's always like this.

I realize that United (the airline in question), Delta, U.S. Airways, America West and Northwest are all either in bankruptcy, just emerged from bankruptcy, or just about to go bankrupt. But this kind of customer service is just going to push them further into financial turmoil.

Hong said he noticed that in Chicago, the baggage handlers all spoke some language other than English to each other, so it seems likely that they might have trouble distinguishing English letter symbols on the baggage tags that denote the airport destinations for the bags.

I haven't had to fly for business reasons (or personal reasons!) for many years now, so I had no idea how bad things had become. The terrorism label has proven to be a great thing to hide underneath when bad service happens for these airlines. Lost your bags? Oh, it must be the terrorism checks that delayed them. Surly flight attendants? Oh, they're just being careful in case there are terrorists.

If you want a bit of fun, check out this site Untied.com. It is a clearing house for customer complaints against United Airlines.

A Speech on Liberalism - Well Done

I heard a great speech on liberalism from an unlikely place tonight. A TV series called "The L Word" had one of their characters go to Washington to lobby for better funding for the arts. Bette, the character was being berated for artwork that a Senator pointed out that could be considered obscene to some.

Bette's speech in front of the Committee was outstanding. Here it is:

"You're just the latest reigning vigilantes. You're just a distraction. A wanton distraction. Let's just be forthright and honest about what is truly unpatriotic. Abject poverty is unpatriotic. The failure of our education system is unpatriotic. Lies told by presidents as justification for war is unpatriotic. It is unpatriotic that elected lawmakers fail to acknowledge, let alone address real desperation."

Liberalism is often tough to put into words. I think this show did it pretty well.

You probably know by now that I don't consider myself to be a liberal nor a conservative. I was born and raised in Western Canada, where our politics would be considered left of the American lefties and right of the American righties.

We believe in the free market, in small government and personal and fiscal responsibility. We believe in helping the poor, keeping religion separate from government and preserving the environment.

Name a party in the U.S. that fits that. I don't think there is one. In Canada, the closest thing is the current government (as of last week), the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper (the first Albertan Prime Minister, as far as I know...).

HHN002 - Second Weekly Podcast is Available Today

My second podcast (ever!) is now available at the podcast site:

www.holistichealthnation.com

Also, if you want to listen to my promo for the podcast, listen to it here.

This podcast is titled "An Answer for Global Malnutrition??"

More About My Podcasting Experience with iWeb, Garage Band and dotMac

In a previous post, I talked about my good experiences with creating a podcast in Garage Band and using iWeb to upload it to dotMac.

I do have a couple of things to report (now that it's done) that didn't work out as well. These are small things, but I wanted you to know the gorey details just the same.

The podcast ended up being a very manageable size of 46MB for a 47 minutes podcast. I am very happy with the size reduction. The sound is good quality, especially the music. No complaints there.

The problems came when uploading the file to iTunes. The process seemed to go fine, but when control flipped over to iTunes, the podcast seemed to have the wrong thumbnail photo (I didn't even recognize it - some dark trees or something) and it also had the wrong title.

I found out that iTunes grabbed the sub-heading as the title of the podcast from iWeb, rather than the title at the top of the page in iWeb. That was a pain. So now the title of my podcast in iTunes is "Holistic News & Politics" instead of what it should be "Holistic Health Nation." Plus, it didn't translate the stupid ampersand (&) properly either. Double pain in the butt.

These two things will make my podcast look bad in iTunes, plus they might make it hard for people to find it.

Luckily, a search of "Holistic Health Nation" in iTunes will still produce my podcast, along with two others, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find. Plus, if people will search for "Kulak" (my last name) they'll also find my podcast, along with two songs in iTunes that look like some sort of Muslim religious songs (!?!).

Further, Apple provides a help page for podcasters on how to make changes to your podcast, but this stuff is incredibly techie stuff. The whole process, with Garage Band, iWeb and dotMac, is very user friendly, but GOD HELP YOU if you need to make changes once your podcast is in iTunes. The process from there on is very archaic. I'm a techie and I'm still hesitant to do all this crap they're suggesting.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the overall process. I'll continue using all these tools, and hopefully Apple will issue a bug fix on iWeb so iTunes takes the right stuff for the cover art (thumbnail image) and the podcast title.

Enrollment in Health Savings Accounts Triples

The L.A. Times reports that enrollments in Health Savings Accounts tripled in last 10 months.

This is a very significant uptick in usage of this important tool for our healthcare. We're finally beginning to take advantage of the triple tax savings in HSAs, and taking charge of our own healthcare in the process. As I've written in my book, Health Insurance Off the Grid, HSAs are an important piece to the health insurance puzzle for the self-employed, unemployed and underinsured.

I'm going to write an article very soon on exactly how HSAs will point many more Americans in the direction of holistic healthcare. This may seem like a non-sequiter, because HSAs do not cover most holistic practices, but I'll show in my article how the two are closely linked.

More to come!

Holistic Health Nation Podcast Is Live!

We did it! The new podcast "Holistic Health Nation" went live tonight with our first podcast episode.

The URL for the podcast is www.holistichealthnation.com. The podcast feed is:

http://rss.mac.com/darylkulak/iWeb/Holistic%20Health%20Nation/Podcast/rss.xml

If you have subscribed to podcasts before, you know what to do.

If you haven't, here are some steps for you.

First, you need a "podcast catcher." This is a piece of software (usually free), that you can install on your computer to automatically receive new episodes of podcasts.

The best software for this is Apple iTunes. Yes, this is the same software that allows you to move songs to your iPod. iTunes works on Apple Macintosh and the newer versions of Windows. It is a great podcast catcher. Once you have iTunes installed, just click on the Podcasts link and choose the ones you like. Holistic Health Nation will be there under the Health category. Type in "Holistic Health Nation" into the search window.

If you don't use Macintosh (OS x) or a newer version of Windows (NT, XP, etc.), then you might need to use a different podcast catcher. Try Indie Podder. It is a free download too.

You can also listen to the podcast right on the Website. But if you like it, you'll need to subscribe through a podcast catcher like iTunes or Indie Podder.

Please have a listen! I'm so interested to hear what you like and don't like about the new podcast. Another one comin' next week!

Next Time You Think the World is a Bad Place...(Remember Open Source)

Next time you are upset with the world, with all the corruption in government, the selfish people, the downhill slide of our morality...

I want you to think of open source software. Open source software (OSS) is software that's been created by communities of programmers who are not being paid, and who do not charge for their product. It includes large groups of people who've never met each other, collaborating over the Internet, e-mailing each other, trying to fix problems, responding to users with help. All in their "hobby time." It's not their job. They don't get paid.

Imagine if your hobby was something that contributed to the long-term good of humanity. Maybe it is. It probably is.

For open source programmers, they are contributing to the good of all of us. I use all kinds of open source products. I'm starting a business, and I often cannot afford the software I need to use. So I use open source.

But think of the other people using it. Some kid in a poor family gets a run-down old PC from somebody. She's a genius. She goes to the library to get connected to the Internet. She downloads a bunch of open source software and begins to use it to create something great. A new piece of software. A novel. Something new.

And then she distributes it on the Internet. The idea gets out. And we've benefitted from this kid who, ten years ago, could not have made her contribution. Now she can.

Here are some of the open source software packages I've used:

OpenOffice - an office suite (word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, presentations)
Gimp - a photo manipulation program like Photoshop
Inkscape - a vector graphics program
Firefox - an Internet browser
Thunderbird - an e-mail client to replace Outlook
GnuCash - an accounting package like Quickbooks
dotProject - a project management system
phpWebsite - a content management for my Website
vTiger - a customer database system
Sunbird - a task management and calendaring system (PIM - like Outlook but no e-mail - soon to be integrated into Thunderbird)

I'm sure there are more, I just can't think of them right now. And much of this stuff is better than the paid software it's replacing (Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Internet Explorer, etc.)

Support the world of open source. Download the software, use it, help to document it, helping coding (if you can), help make it happen.

Podcast is Coming January 25, 2006

I've recorded the interview with Patty Shipley, reserved the domain name www.holistichealthnation.com and I've recorded the introduction, the songs and the other comments. I've mixed it together in Apple Garage Band. The file was extremely large (400MB !!) but there is a way to compress it into an AAC file (75MB). That's still pretty large, but it's the usual for a podcast that lasts 45 minutes.

My job now is to set up the domain with a nice podcast page (made with iWeb, I hope), and to create an MP3 file from the AAC thing I have now.

Wish me luck! We go live on January 25, 2006. Please subscribe when it comes up. I'd love for you to listen in.