Jay Thomas’ “Lone Ranger” Story

A fantastic story from Jay Thomas’ youth:

Big Health Benefits Attributed To Raw Diet: Six Diabetics In Documentary Are Able To Reverse Their Disease

Source: LEF Daily News

Big Health Benefits Attributed To Raw Diet: Six Diabetics In Documentary Are Able To Reverse Their Disease
 
The Hartford Courant, Connecticut
 
03-31-08
 
Mar. 31–In his 2004 film “Super Size Me,” director Morgan Spurlock humorously documents the dramatic health consequences of eating all the wrong things for 30 days. Subsisting on a McDonald’s-only menu, he gains 25 pounds and a host of ailments, among them the decidedly unfunny side effects of liver damage and sexual dysfunction.
 
So what might happen, then, after 30 days of eating all the right things?
 
That question was the seed that evolved into “Raw for 30 Days,” an independent documentary film that chronicles the experience of six diabetics who sign up for a radical diet change. The participants, most diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, move into an Arizona retreat center where they are medically supervised during a challenge to stay off dairy, meat, sugar, alcohol and processed foods. Keeping to a vegan, raw-foods diet of only uncooked, organic plant-based foods, the filmmakers claim participants were able to naturally reverse their diabetes, losing significant weight and coming off their insulin.
 
Set to be distributed online before a summer release at smaller film festivals, the documentary is by no means poised to be a cinematic blockbuster. But buzz has been building for more than a year in raw- and health-food circles. Proponents are wondering if the information can resonate with a mainstream American public plagued with an obesity epidemic and chronic diseases.
 
“I think it’s going to take people to the level of believing, truly believing, that you are what you eat,” says Glen Colello, a holistic health counselor and owner of the newly opened West Haven raw- and health-foods cafe Catch a Healthy Habit. “Maybe people will see this movie and realize medication isn’t their only option.”
 
Such was the intent of the team behind the film, led by creator and executive producer Mark Perlmutter, a longtime vegetarian who himself shifted to a largely raw, or living-foods, lifestyle. He said he witnessed the health benefits in eating fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds in their natural state. The philosophy is that uncooked foods are more nutrient-rich and have their enzymes intact and take less energy to digest, thereby freeing the body to heal itself.
 
Perlmutter learned more after moving to Arizona, where he became familiar with the work of raw-food pioneer Gabriel Cousens, a medical doctor who runs the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia. The center became the setting for the documentary, filmed in 2006 with six diabetics picked from a pool of more than 100 candidates.
 
Audiences will see those who stick with the program go through dramatic transformations. One participant initially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes later learns he actually had type 1 diabetes, considered incurable without a pancreas transplant.
 
“So, how do we get people to do this for themselves? They can’t all go to Arizona,” says Perlmutter. “It’s great to get a couple of miracle stories about these people having major breakthroughs, but the question is how do you get [the medical establishment] to embrace something that obviously works for some people?”
 
But traditional medicine has embraced alternative therapies over the last decade, with many doctors now weaving holistic and naturopathic approaches into conventional treatments. There is, however, skepticism about the long-term benefits and loftier claims of extreme approaches such as raw foods, which dietitians caution can be difficult to sustain and may add up to an unbalanced diet that leaves out too many important foods. Most doctors advise patients to seek their physician’s opinion before starting any such diets.
 
Scientific studies do show clearly the relationship between dietary choices and health. The World Health Organization determined that 70 percent of chronic diseases worldwide could be prevented entirely with changes to diet and lifestyle. In the United States, that figure jumps to 80 percent.
 
“Absolutely. Yes. Diet has a tremendous impact on disease progression and disease manifestation,” says Dr. Mitch Kennedy of the University of Connecticut Health Center, the facility’s first certified naturopathic physician. “And the fact is that most people don’t eat well. All you have to do is look around at what’s available — the fast-food chains and packaged foods and what’s in the food labels.”
 
Kennedy says there are merits to a raw-foods lifestyle. The nutrient content in foods is best preserved in its raw state. And considering the average American doesn’t get the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, most would do well to introduce more into their diets. Yet, he rarely recommends an entirely raw plan. It can be a drastic change, hard on the digestive system and lead to deficiencies in vitamin B12 without consumption of meat or dairy products.
 
When asked for comment, the American Diabetic Association declined to address the film directly, saying only that “weight loss through any means can lower glucose levels in those with type 2 diabetes, sometimes even to normal.” It cautioned against any “one-size-fits-all diabetic diet” and encouraged healthful eating and exercise habits.
 
Kirt Tyson, the misdiagnosed type 1 diabetic, and the most successful of the film’s six participants, says he knows the raw-food plan cured him of his disease. A Baltimore native, he says he went from his worst — a four-day hospitalization with his blood sugar at 1,200 — down today to normal levels. He remains on a raw diet, no longer on insulin.
 
“When you get diagnosed with this disease, you’re always told … there’s no cure. So from that moment, you feel so defeated,” says Tyson, 26, now a graduate student studying naturopathic medicine at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences in Arizona. “What this film does is give hope back to people. It’s not a one-shot thing. You have to work for it. I have to work at it every day.”
 
He doesn’t advocate ignoring traditional medication, but says patients need to be better informed about all options available to them.
 
“Hopefully in the future, I’ll be able to do some research to show how this diet is actually working,” he says. “I don’t know the chemistry behind it. But you can’t look at a guy who was once taking insulin, and now is not and say there’s not something to it. Clearly, it’s working for me.”
 
For more information about the film, visit www.RawFor30Days.com
 
Contact Joann Klimkiewicz at .
 
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Copyright (c) 2008, The Hartford Courant, Conn.

Netflix Movie Streaming on Xbox 360 Actually Coming Soon?

Netflix Movie Streaming on Xbox 360 Actually Coming Soon? – Gizmodo
 
The rumor about Netflix surveying the scene, prepping a possible streaming movie solution to Xbox 360 and PS3 seems to be on the verge of coming true, according to Netflix themselves. They just released a statement that says they’ve surveyed subscribers to see how interested they were in streaming movies over Xbox 360 (PS3 was not mentioned), but didn’t say whether a partnership was coming between them and Microsoft.
 
Releasing a statement about a survey? Sounds like someone’s trying to jockey a better negotiating position while talks are still underway. On a similar note, Netflix’s online site seems to have been down for most of Monday, which makes the case for streaming media even stronger. [Reuters - Thanks David!]

New video of Boston Dynamics BigDog robot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dog

Rap ode to Weng Weng

(Caution:  Adult language & content.  NSFW.)

Mardi Gras: Made in China

Plot synopsis via AllMovie.com:

One of the better known traditions of the annual Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, LA is the beads — most folks wear lots of cheap plastic beads while they wander the city’s streets in search of fun, and men hoping that women will flash their breasts usually toss ladies their beads in what they hope will be considered a fair exchange. However, while in New Orleans, those beads symbolize a wild party and low-level exhibitionism, on the other side of the world they mean something else. In Fuzhou, China, a man named Roger Wong owns a factory that produces the majority of the beads tossed to strangers during Mardi Gras, and to his employees, the beads mean work days of 14 to 20 hours, for which they are paid less than ten cents an hour. Most of the workers in Wong’s plant are young women, whom he says are less likely to cause trouble or make demands than their male equivalent. The workers live in a dormitory where they can be fined one month’s wages if a member of the opposite sex is found in their room. And most are struggling to support themselves and their families on wages that are low even by the standards of a Chinese sweatshop. Mardi Gras: Made in China is a documentary which explores the dramatic contrast between the conditions under which Mardi Gras beads are made and what happens with them once they arrive in the United States; both American revelers and Chinese workers are given a perspective on how the other half lives, and what can be done to make their circumstances more equitable.

Mardi Gras: Made in China official website

IMDB

RottenTomatoes.com

Ellen Page, young Canadian actress extraordinaire

On the 5th of December, I heard this short interview with Ellen Page. Her name was new to my ears, though by the end of the radio spot I vowed to check out everything she’s done. What intrigued me were her discerning comments regarding Hollywood’s climate for young actresses. Her views were refreshing and conveyed strong ethics.

Ellen Page at AllMovie.com

Chris Dodd single-handedly protects our rights

This guy really deserves some props for being the only one to hold up a filibuster of the new FISA bill. This bill would have given immunity to telecomm companies for committing illegal and unconstitutional infringements upon U.S. citizens’ privacy or helping government agencies do so.

Why weren’t more of our representatives – on either side of the aisle – adamant about protecting the Constitution in this case? Do the phone companies have so much power that everyone wanted to protect them more than the people of the U.S.? Where are the congresspeople who work for us (the people)?

This seems an issue that should have been dear to conservatives. I have always understood the Republican party to traditionally be the party to protect citizens’ privacy and curb government intervention in our lives.  Where are the Republicans in fighting this injustice? If the perception of what happened in the Senate is accurate, then there was only one person, a Democrat (and without much help from the other Democrats, either), who kept this bill from being passed at this time. It’ll come around again in January.

Chris Dodd’s my hero today.

Articles:

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Threat Level blog @ Wired

Crooks and Liars (MSNBC Countdown video w/great talking points)

Chris Dodd’s voting record at Project Vote Smart – certainly not squeaky clean (supports PATRIOT act? Oh boy)

Boing Boing

The Raw Story

Consumer Reports countering drug commercials

Consumer Reports’ Health Blog has begun publishing videos in a series they’re calling “Consumer Reports Adwatch” where they will tackle claims made by pharmaceutical ads. (At least, I believe it’s just pharmaceutical ads.) The first of these covers an advertisement for RLS, or “Restless Leg Syndrome”, that ridiculous sounding ailment that drug companies made up to make a buck right after they made up “Acid Reflux Disease.”

Now, before anyone flames me for scoffing at this nonsense, please note that I learned RLS is a real illness, though rare. It’s completely different from the nervous-energy-triggered, bouncing-leg behavior someone exhibited during every minute of every class period in highschool.

Acid Reflux may be real as well and not just symptoms of the crazy modern diet. (I doubt it.) But the ads by Megapharmacorp, Inc. are propaganda, cut and dry. I’m not being naïve. I will never quit expecting people to behave ethically and scrupulous. And in this country (USA), corporations are legally people, too (more so, even).

Are you using RSS to read my blog? Well, you should.

This is called “web syndication” and it’s a way to bring website content to you by using a program called an aggregator to retrieve the content. The web address given to the aggregator so it may grab this content is called a “feed.” (The feed link for this blog is to the top right.) RSS is a language many of these feeds operate in.

This video does a great job of lining it out (Google Reader is the program shown in the video tutorial below, though there are many, many more).: