Archive for the 'personal' Category

Hate to say this, but…

October 14, 2009 3 Comments Tags: .

I have that feeling in my throat, the one that says “you’re gonna wake up tomorrow and be SICK, this is your only hint, do something about it NOW.”

I work in an office with enough people that there’s at least one person sick at any given time. Not to mention a few have kids or friends who have contracted H1N1. It’s that time of year, the flu is definitely spreading through Ohio, so it’s entirely possible I’ve been exposed. That’s life, not much you can do about it besides take care of yourself as best as possible.

2009 flu cases in Ohio

(graphic from latest Rhiza Labs FluTracker data)

I don’t need a doctor to tell me it’s one of four things:

  1. cold
  2. flu
  3. H1N1
  4. nothing.

For the sake of transparency, since I’m such an advocate of natural health (NO vaccines!), I’m going to document the process of practicing what I preach.

I’ll admit, I’m not always kind to my immune system, I can’t claim sainthood. I have occasional insomnia which means only 4 hours of sleep a couple nights a week, and I don’t exercise as much as I should. Aside from that that I take pretty good care of myself — I don’t eat fast food (duh, none of it’s vegan), I eat healthy organic meals, and I take high quality vitamins every day (omega 3, b-complex, and D2.) I feel very confident in my immune system’s ability to fight off sickness, especially with my special plan of attack. (The only kind of attacking I condone. :-)

Day 1, symptoms so far:

  • dry throat, feels swollen when I swallow
  • slight nausea
  • minor headache
  • physically worn down

[Natural] plan of attack:

  • liquid chlorophyll (2 tablespoons a day at least)
  • colloidal silver (spray from Whole Foods)
  • neti pot / sinus wash (twice a day)
  • double dose of vitamin D2
  • herbal tea (horehound, mullein, nettles, echinacea, etc.)
  • Thieves oil (couple drops on the bottom of my feet)
  • lots of water!

If it gets really bad, I have natural anti-virals ready (Virattack Compound and Lomatium Root), but right now I’m far from needing them.

To be continued…


*** Next Day Update:

Woke up feeling good as ever! All symptoms gone. Meanwhile, half of my department is out sick, some of whom got a flu shot.

Behold the power of a healthy immune system.

Defragging Complete.

September 24, 2009 2 Comments Tags: .

I’m back!

A couple months ago I got to a point where anxiety and insomnia were taking over my life and all I saw was bad news coming in on every side. So, at the suggestion of someone very important to me, I took a while off to “defrag” and regain my mental balance. Defragging, for me, came to mean disconnecting from the 24/7 constant connectedness we feel compelled to maintain. Status updates, overflowing Inbox, 1000+ unread Google Reader updates, text messages at all hours of the day — it can really drain a person, and is it worth it?

Think about that feeling you get when you turn your cell phone off. I mean really off, not just the ringer. You feel kinda twitchy right?  We are ADDICTED to being ON all the time. What’s most ironic is that with all our means of “connecting” these days, I’ve never felt more disconnected from people. It occurred to me a few weeks ago when I first started this process, that I have over 600 followers on Twitter and over 200 Facebook friends, but how many of them would be able to find my house and visit me if I were sick? How many of them know when my birthday is without Facebook reminding them? How many would have a clue if I had moved to another country and didn’t mention it in a status update? Clearly this connectedness is not real. In fact, it’s more dangerous than no computer at all because it provides an illusion of connectedness, a false sense of community. It’s also an illusion of living.

We get so busy staring at these crazy glowing rectangles, we forget how to really live and we don’t make real connections with people anymore.

So — acknowledging this imbalance in my life, I logged out of Twitter and deactivated my Facebook account. I supplemented computer time with things that were REAL and satisfied my SOUL rather than my anxiety: family, delicious food, good books, animal hugs, great music, movies, camping, coffee, bike riding, fresh air, guitar playing, meditation, conversations with neighbors… the list goes on.

Of course I still love technology, it has its place and I’ll always be a geek. I love being a few clicks away from saying hi to my friends in New York and California, getting news updates in real-time on Twitter, finding out what the mainstream media isn’t covering by reading one of my dozens of RSS feeds, and posting stories for my friends on Facebook. But, as with everything, moderation is absolutely necessary — it’s so easy to overdose on information and bad news and forget to live your life.

What’s most important is to have real life experiences and cultivate real community, something no amount of clicks or pixels can bring.

I’m back now, but re-balanced. I’ll still update and post stories (I could never stay silent on the crimes of our government and cruelties against animals) but I will live life at the same time. I will no longer be a prisoner to pessimism and worry. If the plug ever gets pulled on the Internet, I’ll still have a life and a community around me, and we’ll all be just fine.

Thanks to my Dad for prompting me to unplug, and to TinyBuddha for motivating me to post this — I’d been meaning to for a couple weeks, but their latest Do Happy email update pushed me to finally do it.

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

- Dalai Lama

Prevent Cancer with Apricot Kernels

December 19, 2008 5 Comments Tags: , , , .

apricotkernels

Want a cheap and natural way to protect yourself from cancer? Ever heard of apricot kernels and vitamin B-17?

A bit of research will reveal that societies that include eating foods rich in B-17 don’t get cancer: Eskimos, Hunzas, and the Hopi and Navajo Indians, for example. And when you combine B-17 AND a vegetarian diet (as Seventh Day Adventists do) — look out!

Why haven’t you heard of this before? To put it simply: the FDA, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, doctors, and other groups that claim to be looking out for your health don’t want a cheap and natural way to prevent cancer to get much attention.

How dare I say such a thing! Keep in mind the FDA, NCI, and NIH are government organizations, and we all know how resistant the gov’t. is to bribery and corruption… NOT. The big pharmaceutical companies LOVE to bribe the government and doctors. After all, cancer treatment is a great way to make money. So, rather than advocate a healthy lifestyle and proper nutrition, they’d prefer to tout a treatment that includes some profit for the HMO’s, pharmaceutical companies, and the banks who have to loan you money in order to pay your hospital bills.

My final argument against mainstream health advice: the FDA and all their friends are the same guys telling you to:

  • drink 8 glasses of fluoridated water a day
  • consume 2-3 servings a day of fattening and diseased meat from animals that lived torturous lives and were slaughtered in the most inhumane ways possible
  • …or you could eat 2-3 servings of eggs instead of meat. “Cage free” and “free range” means the chickens are frolicking on a farm somewhere, happy as can be
  • use aspartame (rat poison) and saccharin (carcinogen) instead of sugar if you want to lose weight
  • consume at least 2-3 servings of hormone and pus-laden cow’s milk a day and don’t worry about the tortured dairy cows that gave it to you
  • keep eating mercury-filled fish, it’s perfectly safe and healthy, especially for pregnant women
  • accept genetically-modified corn as a modern marvel that will save the planet from starvation
  • consume 3-5 servings of fruits and vegetables sprayed with pesticides a day
  • keep using high-fructose corn syrup because it’s “fine in moderation” and better than natural alternatives like stevia or xylitol

You really think they’re telling you the truth about cancer?!

Now the good news: Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s carry apricot kernels!

I’ve shopped at both places for years but only very recently discovered they carried them, so I want to get the word out. You won’t see anything on the label about B-17 or its cancer-prevention benefits, but it’s the same thing you’ll find for sale online for way more. So instead of paying $13/lb., just head over to one of these stores and get the same thing for about half the price: $7/lb @ Whole Foods or $4/lb. @ Trader Joe’s.

One last note: apricot kernels are not the only source of B-17, these foods are also good sources:

Apple seeds, alfalfa sprouts, apricot kernels, bamboo shoots, barley, beet tops, bitter almond, blackberries, boysenberries, brewer’s yeast, brown rice, buckwheat, cashews, cherry kernels, cranberries, currants, fava beans, flax seeds, garbanzo beans, gooseberries, huckleberries, lentils, lima beans, linseed meat, loganberries, macadamia nuts, millet, millet seed, peach kernels, pecans, plum kernels, quince, raspberries, sorghum cane syrup, spinach, sprouts (alfalfa, lentil, mung bean, buckwheat, garbanzo), strawberries, walnuts, watercress, yams.

Action Item: SWAT Raids Co-Op in Rural Ohio

December 5, 2008 1 Comment Tags: , , , .
12/22 FINAL UPDATE: I’ve been too busy to keep up with all the new developments in this story, but the good news is that the Buckeye Institute is suing the ODA and the Lorain County Health Department on behalf of the Stower Family. I highly encourage you to check out The Bovine blog’s coverage and watch the video of the Stowers family telling their story.

—–

UPDATE #2: The Cleveland Plain Dealer has finally decided to give this story some attention, even quoting this blog at one point. Unfortunately, they dismiss all reports of the SWAT team, deciding it’s just some crazies on the internet spreading rumors. Yes of course, believe the police, they’re always innocent and well-intentioned! Don’t do anything silly like wait for the family’s statement to come out…

Reason magazine has also picked up the story, also mentioning my humble little blog:

“The folks over at Peace Chicken (yes, that’s a real site, complete with chicken death doomsday clock) are seriously peeved.”

—–

UPDATE #1: Here’s a good update on this story, including the fact that the husband of the family wasn’t present for the raid because he was in IRAQ. And here is a letter from the family themselves, which includes ways you can help.

[Thanks to LewRockwell.com, Intel Daily, OpEdNews, and NowPublic for carrying this story.]

Below is an OUTRAGEOUS story of a Cleveland-area rural co-op that was raided by a SWAT team earlier this week for a supposed Ohio Dept. of Agriculture violation.

It reeks of police state, lack of Constitutional Rights, and excessive use of force. Unfortunately, this is not a new occurrence, it happens all the time, you just don’t hear about it in the news (big surprise.)

The immediate question that comes to mind — why was the SWAT team used to enforce an alleged Ohio Dept. of Agriculture rule violation? According to the Lorain County Sheriff’s SWAT page, they are intended to be used for these reasons:

  • Hostage Situations: the holding of any person(s) against their will by an armed or potentially armed suspect.
  • Barricade Situation: the stand-off created by an armed or potentially armed suspect in any location, whether fortified or not, who is refusing to comply with law enforcement demands for surrender.
  • Sniper Situations: the firing upon citizens and/or law enforcement officers by an armed suspect, whether stationary or mobile.
  • High-Risk Apprehension: the arrest or apprehension of armed or potentially armed suspects where the likelihood of armed resistance is high.
  • High-Risk Warrant Service: the service of search or arrest warrants where the warrant service matrix or policy recommends or requires the use of SWAT.
  • Personal Protection: the security of special persons, such as VIP’s, witnesses, or suspects, based on threat or potential threat to the well being of those persons.
  • Special Assignments: any assignment, approved by the SWAT Operations Commander, based on a high level of threat and/or need.

Was the private selling of organic food by the Manna Storehouse REALLY one of those instances??

We must stand up for our fellow citizens and refuse to allow a transition from Buckeye State to Police State. After the story you’ll find a list of Cleveland news sources. PLEASE contact them and demand they investigate this story. I strongly believe people would be appropriately outraged if they only knew what was going on.

On Monday, December 1st, a SWAT team with semi-automatic rifles entered the private home of the Stowers family in LaGrange, Ohio, herded the family onto the couches in the living room, and kept guns trained on parents, children, infants and toddlers, from approximately 11 AM to 8 PM.

The team was aggressive and belligerent. The children were quite traumatized. At some point, the “bad cop” SWAT team was relieved by another team, a “good cop” team that tried to befriend the family. The Stowers family has run a very large, well-known food cooperative called Manna Storehouse on the western side of the greater Cleveland area for many years.

There were agents from the Department of Agriculture present, one of them identified as Bill Lesho. The search warrant is reportedly supicious-looking. Agents began rifling through all of the family’s possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family’s personal stock of food for the coming year. All of their computers, and all of their cell phones were taken, as well as phone and contact records. The food cooperative was virtually shut down. There was no rational explanation, nor justification, for this extreme violation of Constitutional rights.

Presumably Manna Storehouse might eventually be charged with running a retail establishment without a license. Why then the Gestapo-type interrogation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor charge? This incident has raised the ominous specter of a restrictive new era in State regulation and enforcement over the nation’s private food supply.
Continue reading ‘Action Item: SWAT Raids Co-Op in Rural Ohio’

Noticed a lack of updates?

November 26, 2008 0 Comments Tags: .

I’ve been MIA from posting to PeaceChicken.com because I’ve been busy with another site: AbolishTheFed.net. Rather than double-posting everything, I’ll just redirect you there. If you’re looking for economic news you WON’T see on CNN or read in the USA Today, come check it out.

Otherwise — forgive the scarcity of posts for a while! There are only so many hours in the day…

Listen to my guest-host appearance on Ohio Freedom Radio

October 25, 2008 0 Comments Tags: , .


A couple weeks ago I was asked to guest-host the Ohio Freedom radio show, and it’s now posted online in case anybody wants to check it out.

Most of the show is a recap of Constitution Party presidential candidate Dr. Chuck Baldwin’s appearance the day before at Capital University, including some great clips from his speech.

I was really nervous, of course, but had a great time — thanks Matt and Joe!

Download the show here (60 min.): http://www.ohiofreedom.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-10-24_1014_show.mp3

Bailout Bill Follow-up Letters to my Senators

October 4, 2008 0 Comments Tags: , , .

As promised.

Dear Mr. Voinovich,

As I promised in my previous communications on this matter, thanks to your treasonous vote in support of the Wall St. Bailout plan, I will never again vote for you. I don’t care who may run against you, whether they be Democrat, Republican, Socialist, whatever– I will never, ever give you my vote.

You should be immensely ashamed of yourself and tried for treason along with many of your colleagues. Instead of standing up as a hero for our Constitution, you sold out our great republic to the bankers.

I will never again address you as Senator Voinovich because you are indeed NOT worthy of such a label. You are a traitor, and nothing else.

Sincerely,
…

and:

Dear Mr. Brown,

As I promised in my previous communications on this matter, thanks to your treasonous vote in support of the Wall St. Bailout plan, I will never again vote for you. I don’t care who may run against you, whether they be Democrat, Republican, Socialist, whatever– I will never, ever give you my vote.

You should be immensely ashamed of yourself and tried for treason along with many of your colleagues. Instead of standing up as a hero for our Constitution, you sold out our great republic to the bankers.

I will never again address you as Senator Brown because you are indeed NOT worthy of such a label. You are a traitor, and nothing else.

Sincerely,
…