The Ure household is nominally non-denominational.
But, that doesn’t blind us to the fact that there is now – and always has been – an ongoing battle between forces of “evil” and “good.”
To the point: We are seeing a number of indicators this year that are telling us in no uncertain terms, that this battle is not going well for the “good” people of the world.
(Continues below)
Let me start with a discussion of media, since Elaine and I don’t get out much.
We live in a comfortably remodeled double-wide in the home, done to our liking, out in the woods. The “yard” is large – about 1.2-million square feet. The trees are still holding onto their leaves because it’s been so warm. 75-again at “martini time” Wednesday. Why leave?
Food is better and cheaper at home – better views…and being around other people – mostly talking on the phone – is not our cup of tea. Don’t need to hear other people’s business…
We don’t consume much – if any – media with commercials.
So when we were at the eye doc’s place Monday afternoon, I was rolling hysterically about the medications being pimped on television. “Tell Ure Doctor!”
Except, do we really want people practicing medicine on themselves?
Let’s say I am a bit of a hypochondriac. Should I even watch such commercials? Don’t they inculcate me with the idea that I’m SICK?
Maybe, in fact, I’m not sick. People, being what they are, will look at the symptomology (sold on the boob tube) so we see the first vector for Advertising-Induced Mis-Diagnosis. You can call it AIMD for short.
So now, you go into your doc and you dutifully report all the minor aches and pains which you (deliberately, or not) have tailored to the suggestions in the ads, “Oh, doc, I have this, that, and this other thing and the ad says I may have (blank) which you can treat with (blank)…”
Now we see how we get to Advertising-Induced Mis-Treatment. AIMT for short.
It’s no question that the doctor will be listening for such hypochondria, but if someone believes they are sick and their symptoms fit, shouldn’t they be giving treatment for what ails them?
To my thinking, this opens up a line of litigation. Because the television networks are engaging, in a sense, in the practice of medicine and they’re not doctors.
If someone came up to you on the street today and said “You may have irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, if you have running stools, stomach pain, diarrhea, and headaches. IF you do, tell your doctor about Pinchobutt, endorsed by 9 out of 10 IBS suffering sex symbols…”
You’d call the copes on such a person and no one would blame you.
Spray the same crap on a 55″ television – where the network makes money, the local affiliates make money, the drug company sells more product, and the doc has a no-brainer solution to a “problem” – well, then everyone wins.
But do they? I mean really?
The doc hasn’t really practiced medicine. Public relations with pills, sure. But solid medicine? Naw…let’s do the cheap and easy route instead of getting to the bottom of things. (Bottom, get it? IBS… I crack myself up with puns sometimes…)
That how conditioning works. You and told and sold and so you yee shall believe. Except maybe you got drunk on tequila and gorged on Mexican food…that kind of detail might be missed.
We are always receiving these low-level programming and formatting messages from our media world.
Here’s another one – this one being part and parcel of the global attack on religions in general and Christianity in particular:
“Upside–down Christmas trees are all the rage for 2017.”
On the surface, it sounds like an innocent, fun – hell, maybe frat-house humor – but what the heck, right??
Except in this one, we need to step back and so dome generalizing.
Hmmm…What and where else have we seen upside down symbols before?
Fact is it sounds to me quite reminiscent of a Black Mass by the Satanic folks. (Soul supper, anyone?)
On the surface, its just a tree. But down in the area where people don’t think, this is about turning Christmas upside down. That’s the message that gets pumped into the preconscious levels of thought.
And it’s why if you haven’t ready some of John Fraim’s works on symbology, it might be worth your while.
Take a look at his Battle of Symbols: Global Dynamics of Advertising, Entertainment.
You could do worse. And next time you want to tell your doctor something? Tell him you’ve cut back on your consumption of advertising. Might even spill over into lower blood pressure.
This message has not been evaluated by the FDA.
Write when you get rich,
George@ure.net
George, while shooting the breeze with my physician some years back he sadly said “We not longer diagnose we just prescribe”. The AMA and drug companies had beat him into submission! I asked if he ever referred to his Physicians’ Desk Reference anymore and the answer was “No”. Myself having studied TCM and other alternative medicines since around 1970 I have attempted to teach my children to investigate and think about their bodies (physical, mental & spiritual) while listening to the Doc. Not many ‘meds’ (one?) in our entire family at all, so maybe thinking is good? Take care!
As an American and an individual, I absolutely claim the right to practice medicine for myself. We’re supposed to be “free people”. Presumably telling someone what they’re likely to have and what to do about it is “illegal”. WTF! What happened to the First Amendment? What happened to critical listening?
I have no tolerance for this. I diagnose and treat myself and have since I was in my 20’s. I’m in very good shape and will stay that way through my own research, diagnosis, and correction as necessary. Yes, I’ve studied medicine and read widely. I also have a far greater interest in the outcome than anyone else. I’m quite furious about the continuing clamping down on any substance or technique that I can use to my benefit. Organized medicine has very limited options. I admit that dentistry is beyond my competence, for the most part, but I do assert tight control of what procedures, and what anesthetics. We need to return to self-reliance and self-responsibility.
I plan to live forever or die trying!
Good on ya, me too.
Remember, you must live with the consequences, the doctor doesn’t.
I couldn’t have said it better myself, apart from my parents taking me to regular pediatrician visits as a child 40 odd yrs ago, I’ve never regularly gone to the doctor, nor has my son. I’ve been vegan or vegetarian for past 28 years and my son has been from birth. He is home birthed, non circumcised, non vaccinated, and the only time he was sick he got whooping cough from his vaccinated cousin – who got it despite being vaccinated. We just are never sick, so why go to doctor? If we get some virus we take MMS, but that is so super rare too. I am grateful that emergency medicine is available, for sure! It saved my life once, and helped when my son fell out of a tree and needed a cast – which I likely could have done myself if I lived where help wasn’t available.
My Grandmother was 105yrs. old when she past. She was still sharp as a tack and got around without help. When I got home from the funeral a good customer (and a doctor)stopped by the shop and we were talking about her and I told the Doc. she was a life long believer in Christian Science, no doctors no meds. His response that was dead serious, staying away from doctors was why she lived so long!
there is a lot of wisdom in that .. most medications are nothing more than controlled poisons..
Dang, do I agree with that….I ONLY go to the regular doc when I absolutely have to – preferring to go to a naturopath. Regular docs keep pimping all the big pharma crap…how many times have I heard – ‘oh, just take it for a couple weeks….’ and my response is – no friggin way. I do not take ANY big pharma stuff unless it is life/death situation – especially when they do not know the 20-40 year effects. Does ANYONE listen to all the caveats that go with those drug ads? I mean, really listen to them/hear them? The side effects are scarier than what is being treated.
If I’m not mistaken I think most centenarians and beyond have a strong tendency to be women. It’s just part of the deal with this body. I think women’s ability to socialize and derive their self-worth and activity level from that tends to help them continue on longer than us men who derive most of our self-worth from what we do with our hands. When we can’t do that or get around any more then it’s time to make an exit.
But, yes, if I see a doc it averages out to about once a year if even that. They WILL find something that gives them an excuse to prescribe something to you and you’ll stay on that for forever. With no health insurance that limits me to very little. The left over amoxicillin my granddaughter had in the fridge got me out of a trip to the doc back in October and I never go for flu shots. Not everyone can do this, I realize, but with a little personal observation and a lack of hypochondria we are our own best doctors given the information available to us today.
My crackpot theory of the day:
The high level of bad/evil things and events we are experiencing is caused by
DO GOODERS!
According to yin/yang, the good and bad are always in balance. So, the more good deeds etc. are performed, the more bad is created to balance things out.
Q.E.D.
Reduce evil, stay inert.
73s.
Business model: Advertise tobacco in all media until legal pressure stops the death trade. But half of tv revenues come from tobacco ads. What to do? Immediately allow previously forbidden prescription drug advertising, the moment tobacco revenues dry up. Tobacco settlements fill government coffers, plus ongoing revenues fro taxes and payouts. Media covers for Pharma. Pharma is biggest contributor to campaign funds. All news networks would be bankrupt in a week without drug adverts. They report accordingly. Pharma seizes legal control of medicine, including the 47% who get their medicine from the government. Alternatives neither funded nor studied.
What’s not to like?
“It’s no question that the doctor will be listening for such hypochondria, but if someone believes they are sick and their symptoms fit”
LOL so true.. I have a few ailments.. my problem is I love to read. a few decades ago I had a serious problem that needed surgery. I read all the surgical books etc.. and the doctor was so impressed he had me sit in and observe the very surgery I had it was amazing and we became life long friends.. he saved my life and I know it and appreciated his skill..well decades later and a weird set of circumstances I begin reading.. read it all.. labels books etc. my personal passion right now is philosophy and ancient philosophy..but when this odd set of ailments began each of them serious in their own right I went to reading attempting to find the common denominator that connects them all.. and the doctor and I discussed it.. my point with the doctor is there has to be a common denominator nothing exists without there being a cause to make certain affects.. I am sure that the doctor gets pretty tired of my dwelling on what would cause such odd circumstances right now I am pretty content knowing that whatever the starting point was the only thing they can do is treat the symptoms.. so far it all looks to two things environmental.. ( some of my hats was to make cleaners and pesticides and herbicides work in a lab setting.. and a day labor job shoveling hot dirt)and the fact that I was a workaholic.
my opinion about the good and bad.. there is way to much hate in this world. Our cities are not pretty much tribalized.. one neighborhood controlled by one set another by another.. our police forces look more like elite fighting forces than the local law enforcement. I mean really why would a neighborhood law enforcement need a tank of sorts.. theres discontent and distrust.. because of law enforcement killing unarmed citizens has cause a lot of distrust and fear among the citizens in some cases enough that they seek out the security of the gangs that the law enforcement originally was set out to protect them. I think it was either Stanford or harvard that did a social study on the mental outlook of society. they sent ethnic races into some neighborhoods that were predominately Caucasian and then sent Caucasian into predominantly ethnic neighborhoods.. the results were horrific.. those entering the Caucasian neighborhoods were met with some distance.. those entering ethnic neighborhoods had to be escorted out before they ended up harmed and neighborhoods that were mostly refugee well they never even made it in the neighborhood and had to run. My curiosity is.. could it be the emf .. all of these things are in neighborhoods with a high emf reading.. along with a paranoia ..
Symbology = psychologically powerful stuff. Let’s go back thru the mists of human history to the point where humans attempted to convey their thoughts and fears to other humans without the spoken word. Egypt used stacks of etched and painted symbols, aka ‘ideograms’, that we now call hieroglyphs to convey certain thoughts and ideas. These later reflected the phonetics of their spoken language. The Sumarians similarly developed their own ideograms, cuneiform writing, to capture their thoughts and ideas. Chinese ideograms, initially captured on strips of bamboo and sea shells, developed into today’s complex written language. Essentially, symbols convey human thoughts and ideas. Mastering symbology helps advertisers, politicians and religious zealots to recruit consumers, voters and followers. This web site http://www.crossroad.to/Books/symbols1.html
offers a glimpse into this psychologically revealing and insidiously impactful field, one we all would benefit from recognizing and better understanding.
As a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, I would have to say that the world is not falling apart, it is falling into place. There has always been a struggle with “good” versus “evil” since Sin entered the world through Adam and Eve. I tend to not look at it that way, but more through the eyes of we are either “Alive” or we are “Dead”. All of the “evil” things are simply the result of man’s freewill to choose how they live their life. We could get into the moral code, and who exactly gave us that code, but maybe another time. God Bless
Medicine as practiced in the USA is a religion. The doctors are the priests, the drugs are the sacraments to be administered only the priests, and the hospitals are the temples where the blood sacrifices take place. Challenge this religion and you will get the same reaction as challenging the Catholic Church or the Muslims.
In Ecuador pretty much all pharmaceuticals except the class I and II drugs are available without prescription. For about 10% of USA prices.
Years ago the Ecuadorian government realized that they would never be able to provide allopathic medicine to its citizens so they certified a company to provide training in alternative medicine. Anyone who graduates can set up a practice, but cannot write prescriptions. Our go to doc here is a surgeon, but she also does acupuncture and other alternative practices like neural therapy for chronic pain. Early on, I went in for chronic stomach pain. She asked my wife for her wedding ring, placed it on my navel, filled my navel with salt, stuck a sliver of some kind of local wood on a used needle, and proceeded to light it up. She smoked my body for about five minutes. I got up, the pain was gone, and never came back. $20.
We check ourselves for parasites when necessary. It consists of taking a stool specimen in to the lab for $3. Then take the results slip to the pharmacy, and for $7 get the correct medication. Gone in 3 days, no doc involved.
Once a year we do $80 in lab tests, which would cost over $1,000 in the USA. If anything is out of normal range, we get checked out by a doc, or treat it ourselves and go back for another test. No doc required to get the tests.
Eat your heart out America, where 17% of the GDP is medical.
If you don’t have insurance and find a self pay doc, the blood work is less than $150. Just wanted to add to your vast repertoire of outdated facts. Although, I do enjoy your posting from paradise.
Parasites?! We do have our share up here. Drank river water all the time when we swam and ate water cress straight out of it choosing the cleanest and washing it in the same water but never had any symptoms of parasites. That garnish will never taste better in the grocery store up here but, dang!, a lack of parasites is one of those benefits of our artificial bubble we live in in the States. Water parks not withstanding. I refuse to visit those cesspools of disease. Common sense is a big part of one’s health.
The upside down Christmas Tree & the current attack on religion remind me of Daniel 5: 23-28
23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.
24 “Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. 25 And this is the writing that was inscribed: mene, mene, tekel, and parsin. 26 This is the interpretation of the matter: mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 27 tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; 28 peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
I must assume that the commercials for medications aren’t working as well as expected.
As some may be aware , it wasn’t that long ago it was “decided” for our health and well being that you had high blood pressure if you’re numbers were over 140/90.
Recently ( last week ? ) those numbers were lowered to a threshold of 130/80 now.
OF COURSE it’s better to have lower numbers , but I can’t help but thinking about all of the millions of new customers big pharm will have now. Hmmmm…..